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Bame anb ©augijtEr©
of Colonial ©ap
By
GERALDINE BROOKS
" There may be, and there often is, indeed, a regard for
ancestry which nourishes only a weak pride, . . . Bui there
is, also, a moral and philosophical respect for our ancestors
which elevates the character and improves the heart.**
— Daniel Webster.
ILLUSTRATED
l^eto iorh
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS
• Of THE
UNIVERSITY
OF
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REABHNI ROOM
Copynghiy 1900
By Thomas Y. CrawM <$- Co.
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PEEFAOE.
These narrative sketches of certain dames and
daughters of our colonial days are designed to
illustrate the different tjrpes, epochs, and sections
that made up our early American history. Other
names of almost equal importance with those
chosen could have been included in the pages of
this volume, but that might have given undue
preponderance to a particular epoch or a special
section. It has been the author's endeavor to show
in her choice of charactera, periods, and environ-
ments the changing conditions of colonial life from
the stem and controversial days of early settle-
ment to the broader if no less strenuous times
that saw the birth of the republic.
The author wishes to, express her indebtedness
to the published researches of that indefatigable
delver in Qolonial history Mrs. Alice Morse Earle,
and to the biographical series entitled " Women of
Colonial and Revolutionary Days," of which Mrs.
Earle is editor; to the collection of Americana
in the Boston Public Library, the Boston Athe-
naeum and the Somerville Public Library, and es-
pecially to the courtesy of Mr. William S. Thomas,
of Baltimore, in placing at her service the excel-
lent sketch of Margaret Brent written by his
father, the late John L. Thomas.
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CONTENTS.
OHAPTIB PAOS
I. Anue Hutchinson, op Boston, Founder of the
FiBST WoMAN*s Club in Amekica, 1686 . . 1
II. Frances Mart Jacqueline La Tour, the De-
fender OF Fort La Tour, 1660 81
III. Margaret Brent, the Woman Ruler of Mary-
land, 1650 59 '
ly. Madam Sarah Knight, a Colonial Traveller,
1704 75
y . Eliza Lucas, of Charleston, afterwards Wife
OF Chief-Justice Charles Pinckney, 1760 . 108
yi. Martha Washington, of Mount yERNON, Wife
OF General George Washington, 1770 . . 138
yil. Abigail Adams, Wife of John Adams and
Mother of John Quinct Adams, 1770 . . 169
ym. Elizabeth Schuyler, of Albany, afterwards
Wife of Alexander Hamilton, 1776 . . . 215
IX. Sarah Wister and Deborah Norris, Two
Quaker Friends of Philadelphia, 1776 . . 245 ,
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Drawings by Charles Copdand,
PAa*
^^ * The Mistssss President * staktino off for a
Drive/* (Page 164) FronHapUee
*^ *" Mt Judgment is not altered, though mt Expres-
sion ALTERS,' SHE DECLARED, IN RiNOINO TONES/* 23
** Evert Man was inspired bt her Skill and
Courage" 54
** * i make you my solb executrol,' he said ; ' take
All and pay All'" 64
^^ Down the Dark Ashley River in a Canoe hol-
lowed FROM A Great Cypress" 119
" * Johnny,* the Post-rider " 196
"The Next Instant the Girl drew quickly away
FROM THE Window" 216
" Climbing upon a Big Wheelbarrow that stood
THERE, THEY PEERED OVER THE WaLL" .... 249
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DAMES AND DAUGHTERS
OF COLONIAL DAYS
ANNE HUTCHINSON, OF BOSTON,
POUNDBB OF THE FIRST WOMAN's CLUB IN
AMERICA.
Bom in Lincolnshire, England, 1690.
Died at Pelham, New York, in 1043.
"The Joan of Arc of New England, whose dauntless spirit,
confronted by her tormentors, triumphed orer momentary
weakness." — Doyle,
The room was crowded with women, dressed in
the olives, browns, and drabs of the quiet Puritan
taste. The faces of some bore signs of home-
sickness and of longing. Others showed the gen-
tleness and fortitude of spirit that had found
strength and comfort in the new life over seas.
All eyes were fixed in intent earnestness upon the
face of the speaker, who gravely sat in her straight-
backed chair, beside a severe-looking table strewn
with manuscripts.
With her hands clasped firmly in her lap and her
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2 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
head thrown back a little, as if in a certain ** bold-
ness " of spirit, the speaker's bright ejres travelled
from one inquiring face to another, while her voice
thrilled with the enthusiasm she felt in her subject.
She was dwelling upon the superiority of her
own minister, the Rev. John Cotton, to the other
ministers of that day in and about Boston.
**The difference between Mr. Cotton and the
other ministers of this colony," she declared, "is
as wide as between heaven and hell; for he preaches
not a convenant of works, but of grace, and they,
having not a seal of the spirit, are no able ministers
of the New Testament."
There was no stir of surprise or disapprobation
among her listeners. Yet these were bold words.
Here was a woman venturing to set herself up as
a judge over the spiritual heads of the colony of
Massachusetts Bay, and that, too, at a time when
the church was regarded as the centre of all au-
thority, life, and interest, when the rules as to
church attendance and the observance of the Sab-
bath were most rigid, when ministers were esteemed
beyond criticism, and church membership was a
test of citizenship.
But such were the wisdom, brilliancy, and mag-
netism of Mistress Anne Hutchinson, of Boston-
town, that her daring words were received with
favor rather than with disapproval. Many heads
framed in the Puritan caps of those colonial days
were seen nodding in agreement with the speaker,
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ANNE HUTCHINSON 3
and one shrewd little woman whispered to her
neighbor : ^^ I declare, Mis. Hutchinson hath more
learning than the ministers, hath she not ? "
It was one of many such meetings held at Anne
Hutchinson's own dwelling, a plain frame home-
stead of those first colony days, standing at the
comer of Washington and School streets. Upon
the site of that house, years after, was built the
famous " Old Comer Book Store," which is still a
landmark in the Boston of to-day.
Twice each week the women of Boston, and
some from the neighboring towns, would take their
way along the narrow winding footpaths that led
across the river marshes and through the cornfields,
past the meeting-house and the market, to Anne
Hutchinson's home, where in her plain but spacious
living-room they would read together, discuss, and
criticise the sermons of the ministers in and about
the capital of the Puritan colony.
As the originator and leader of these women's
meetings Mrs. Anne Hutchinson may be regarded
as the first American club-woman, although the
difference between the woman's club of to-day and
those vague, mystical theological discussions in
Anne Hutchinson's house was " as wide " — if we
may fall back upon her own antithesis — " as be-
tween heaven and hell."
The life of the colonial dames and daughters of
Anne Hutchinson's day was wofully limited, and
it is not surprising that those first Boston women,
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4 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
in the absence of all pleasant social gatherings,
knowing nothing of newspapers, libraries, or dfdly
mail, found An ne Hutchinson's semi-weekly gatheiv
ings most attractive ; they must surely have en-
joyed the freedom of thought and speech, the
questioning and objecting practised at their meet-
ings, and perhaps, too, they were fascinated by that
spice of danger which they realized entered into
their criticisms of men, then supreme in control.
Nor is it any wonder that the ministers themselves
grew wroth at all this objecting and criticising, that
they felt the blow dealt their assumed superiority
and their self-conceit, and that they finally rose
in a body to denounce and arraign this ^ breeder
of heresies," as they called Anne Hutchinson.
It is a pity that we cannot know this interesting
woman more intimately. The most that has been
said of her comes from the mouths of her enemies.
She was the daughter of Francis Marbury, a noted
preacher of Lincolnshire, in old England. Her
husband was William Hutchinson of the same
English shire.
Of William Hutchinson little is known to us
save that he was Anne Hutchinson's husband, and
I am very much afraid that it was a oase of Mrs.
Hutchinson and husband. John Winthrop, in his
diaiy, speaks of William Hutchinson as a man of
^^a very mild temper and weak parte, wholly
guided by his wife."
But when we discover that William Hutchinson
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ANNE HUTCHINSON. 6
was by no means the only man guided by Mistress
Anne, and that she numbered among her followers
such men as her brother-in-law, die Rev. John
Wheelwright, the only man of whom Cromwell
ever confessed a fear; William Coddington, a
worthy magistrate of Boston, and, later, founder
and governor of Rhode Island ; that brilliant and
noble "boy governor" of the colony, young Sir
Harry Vane ; and, for a while, even that most able
religious leader and teacher of his time, John Cot-
ton, foremost minister of Boston, lecturer of Trin-
ity College, and champion of the civil power ; — we
may ascribe Anne Hutchinson's " guidance " less
to the " weak parts " of the gentlemen than to the
"ready wit" and "bold spirit" which John Win-
throp also records as characteristic of this out-
spoken and brilliant woman.
She, on her part, was deeply influenced by the
preaching of John Cotton. In her English home
she had listened with intense spiritual fervor to his
preaching as vicar of St. Botolph, in that Lincoln-
shire Boston which gave its name to the new Bos-
ton of Massachusetts Bay. When he became a
non-conformist and sought refuge and a home
among the Puritans of the Bay State, the memory
of his words was still a strong power in the parish
he had left, and Anne Hutchinson, upon her arrival
at Boston, frankly confessed that she had crossed
the sea solely to be under his preaching in his new
home.
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6 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
It was in September, 1634, that the ship " Grif-
fith" brought Mrs. Anne Hutchinson with her hus-
band and family to Boston. We are told that, even
on the voyage across, she " vented " opinions and
claimed "revelations" which very much shocked
one of her fellow-passengers, the Rev. Mr. Symmes.
He must have said as much ; for, soon after land-
ing, some report of her fanatical opinions was cir-
culated among the members of the church at
Boston.
In fact, so great was the dread of what were
called the " Antinomian heresies " that Mrs. Hutch-
inson was not admitted to membership in the
Boston church when her husband was. And even
as early as this in her American career she was
regarded with some suspicion.
It is hard to tell just how her religious views
disagreed with those of the colony churches. Win-
throp asserted that she brought two dangerous
errors with her. These " errors " hinged upon some
abstract difference between a •' covenant of works "
and a " covenant of grace," all of which sounds un-
intelligible to us of to-day.
"As to the precise difference," Winthrop him-
self was forced to declare, " no man could tell, ex-
cept some few who knew the bottom of the matter,
where the difference lay." Gov. John Winthrop
was a very able thinker and clear-headed man;
so if he was in the dark we scarcely need trouble
our heads over this argument of the long ago.
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ANNE HUTCHINSON. 7
But in spite of her revelations and heretical
opinions Anne Hutchinson won the regard and
love of her fellow-colonists through her kind offices
to the sick and sorrowing. And a month after her
husband's admission to the Boston church, she, too,
was made a member. Those who admitted her to
fellowship were, however, soon to regret their ac-
tion. For, as you may judge from what has already
been said of her. Mistress Anne Hutchinson, al-
though an intelligent, courageous, charitable, and
helpful woman, was also very free-spoken. Her
"voluble tongue" soon involved the colony in a
religious and political controversy.
As her teachings began to take effect there
resulted among her followers a general practice of
attending church in a spirit of criticism. After
the sermon objections were discharged at the min-
ister " like so many pistolnshots." Open criticism
grew into pronounced contempt. When a minister
whom they did not care to hear occupied the pulpit
some enthusiasts would rise and, ^^ contemptuously
turning their backs " upon the preacher, walk out
of the meeting-house. This practice was but fol-
lowing Mrs. Hutchinson's example ; for whenever
the Rev. Mr. Wilson stood up to speak, immediately
she would rise and depart. The Rev. Mr. Wil-
son was the minister of the Boston church as John
Cotton was the teacher, — really a case of pastor
and colleague, — and this was the original, though
scarcely courteous way that Mis. Anne Hutch-
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8 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
inson took of showing her preference for the
"teacher" or colleague.
There is certainly a humorous side to this stoiy
of threatened schism in the Boston church; for
those stem Puritan divines of solemn face and
sombre garb, of autocratic conscience though of
God-fearing purpose, of theological bias and of
narrow mind, must certainly have cut pitiable fig-
ures under the disrespectful treatment of the ob-
noxious Hutchinsonians. It is, indeed, a ques-
tion whether they were able to maintain their
clerical dignity to their own satisfaction under the
" pistolnahots " and the contemptuously departing
backs.
But there was also a gravely serious side to tins
aflfair. Through the teaching of Anne Hutchinson
dissension was arising within the colony of Massa-
chusetts Bay. Now the safety of the colony de-
pended upon the peaceful behavior of the colonists.
Any disagreement among them might easily lead
to a loss of their charter, and, consequently, to a
loss of that religious and civil liberty which was so
dear to them.
Gov. John Winthrop and those who supported
him felt this keenly. With anxiety and disap-
proval they had watched the growing disaffection
that had followed upon Mrs. Hutchinson's out-
spoken criticisms, and they sought to stop it before
it should prove a " canker to their peace and a ruin
to their comforts."
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ANNE HUTCHINSON. 9
The controversy started in the Boston church.
Parson Wilson began to, resent Mrs. Hutchinson's
hostile attitude toward himself, and the minister and
the woman lecturer soon became open antagonists.
The church was divided into two parties. The
former governor, John Winthrop, believing that
course best for the colony, took up Mr. Wilson's
cause, while Mrs. Hutchinson had with her a
majority of the Boston church, including young Sir
Harry Vane, who was then governor of Massachu-
setts Bay. She also had the sympathy and partial
support of her teacher and friend, the Rev. John
Cotton.
The quarrel soon spread beyond the limits of
the town. AU the ministers of the surrounding
country with the exception of the Rev. John
Wheelwright, of Braintree, sided with Wikon and
Winthrop. Wheelwright, together with John Cot-
ton, was included by Mrs. Hutchinson in the " cov-
enant of grace," and as her brother-in-law and
ardent sympathizer he became a prominent member
of the Hutchinson faction.
The churches of the colony outside of the capital
town supported their ministers, and thus the dis-
pute assumed a political character. It became a
contest of the suburbs against Boston, Wilson and
Winthrop of the Boston church being of the sub-
urban or clerical faction.
It seemed, at first, as if the Hutchinson element
would prevail. Mrs. Hutchinson's quick sallies
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10 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
and ready replies threw into contempt the grave
censures of Winthrop and Wilson. Her brilliancy,
her courage, her defiance of authority, were mag-
netic. They fascinated and persuaded where the
hard, dull logic of the opposition failed. But Mis-
tress Anne Hutchinson was soon to learn her own
weakness, while the sensitive and impulsive Sir
Harry Vane with his broad views of progress was
to meet with disappointment. The ministers might
be ^^narrow-minded bigots," as it has become the
fashion to characterize them, but they were stem
and determined men. And the influence of Win-
throp, father of Massachusetts, the defender of the
clergy and the old order, was slow, perhaps, but
sure.
His power was realized, and resulted in success
for himself and the ministers whom he championed,
when, at the election held at Cambridge on the 17th
of May, 1637, he was chosen governor of the colony
in place of young Sir Harry Vane, who, with the
other Hutchinsonians, were set aside.
The shock to the enthusiastic hopes of young Sir
Harry Vane was too great for recovery. The fol-
lowing August he sailed home to England, always
to remain, in spite of his stormy Massachusetts ex-
perience, a stanch friend to the colonies, always
an " apostle of freedom," perishing, indeed, upon
the scaffold for liberty of conscience and freedom
of man.
With the election of Winthrop as governor.
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ANNE HUTCHINSON 11
and the withdrawal of Vane, the clerical faction
assumed control. The General Court was composed
almost entirely of men from that party, and it at
once adopted a course of action that was prompt as
well as autocratic.
Attention was first directed toward the Rev. John
Wheelwright, of Braintree, one of the ablest sup-
porters of the Hutchinson cause. A man of courage
and firm purpose, second only in authority to Anne
Hutchinson herself, he was declared guilty of
" sedition and contempt " and sentenced to ban-
ishment.
Other Hutchinsonians were punished with fines,
disfranchisement, or banishment. The main efforts
of the Court, however, were exerted against the
woman whom the clergy regarded as the " breeder
and nourisher of all these disasters."
Wheelwright had not yet left his Braintree home
to seek shelter in the wilderness of New Hamp-
shire when Mrs. Hutchinson was summoned to
appear before the court to answer to charges
brought against her. Her trial was held at Cam-
bridge, on the 17th of November, 1687.
We can well believe that the world had a hard,
dull look that day for Anne Hutchinson. She
found little consolation in the ice and snow, the
barren sea-coast and river banks of her New Eng-
land home. As she crossed the Charles on her way
to the Cambridge meeting-house, the east wind,
sweeping in from the bay, chilled her so that she
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12 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
shivered involuntarily. She might almost read a
prophecy in its bitterness, but she set her face reso-
lutely against it and her firmly closed lips showed
that she was bracing herself for the ordeal before
her. As she came in sight of the meeting-house
she saw that people were gathering there from
all quarters. They came in farm wagon, in the
saddle, and on foot. Almost every one of impor-
tance in the colony was there.
The little log meeting-house of New Towne (the
Cambridge of to-day) stood at what is now the
comer of Mount Auburn and Dunster streets, just
off from Harvard square. It was a cold, dark,
bam-like building, and on the morning of Anne
Hutchinson's trial the gloom of the November day
had settled upon it. The few small windows
admitted little light, and to Anne Hutchinson's
overwrought imagination those windows seemed
like spying eyes frowning down upon her.
Every wooden bench in the house was crowded
with spectators. At his table sat Governor Win-
throp, surrounded by the Assistants of his Council,
the clergy, and the magistrates who made up the
court. Gov. John Winthrop's face, rising above
the familiar Puritan ruff, looked less kind that day
than usual. There was a slight knitting of the
broad brow as if he, too, regarded the coming trial
as an ordeal which he must undergo for the sake
of duty and discipline.
Anne Hutchinson stood in the place assigned
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ANNE HUTCHINSON. 18
her and faced her accusers. There was no show
of defiance in her manner. She was calm and
respectful. The hard, determined faces of her
ju(^es were in striking contrast to her slight, deli-
cate frame and sensitive face, still young, but a
little worn from the intellectual warfare through
which she was passing. As she stood before the
court, under fire of the hostile glances and scolding
words of those about her, Anne Hutchinson was
not afraid. She knew herself to be in the right,
and that thought brought her strength and cour-
age. She recalled the story of Daniel the prophet,
and how the princes and presidents " sought matter
against him concerning the law of God," and cast
him into the lions' den, from which, she assured
herself, the Lord delivered him. It seemed to her
steadfast but oveivstimulated mind that the Lord
also promised such deliverance to her.
Her spirits rose, but her physical strength seemed
deserting her. Her face lost its color. She swayed
and grasped the nearest bench for support. Then
some one not wholly without courtesy toward this
one woman standing so alone and unchampioned,
offered her a chair and she sat down.
The accusations of the court were at fiist general
and trivial. Mrs. Hutchinson was as quick-witted
as usual in her replies. When Winthrop charged
her with having held unauthorized meetings at her
house, she inquired pertinently :
" Have I not a rule for such meetings in the in-
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14 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
junctions of Paul to Titus, that the elder women
should instruct the younger?"
Later in the trial the ministers were called upon
to testify as to the criticisms which she had passed
upon their preaching. They spoke with resent-
ment and anger, and, as she listened, Mrs. Hutch-
inson experienced her first sensation of dismay.
Any words of hers, she realized, would be powei>
less to appease such bitterness and wounded
vanity.
She felt the need of a supporter, some one to
help her plead her cause. Suddenly a chair was
drawn beside her, and, recognizing in the very
movement an expression of the sympathy she
craved, she turned gratefully to her friend. And
then her face lighted with pleasure. It was her
teacher, John Cotton, who sat beside her. But he
did not meet the glance of her thankful eyes. He
seemed rather to avoid it, as if reluctant to show
undue interest in the culprit.
When asked to give his testimony, however,
John Cotton spoke eloquently in Anne Hutchin-
son's defence, and explained away so smoothly and
convincingly the difference which the accused had
drawn between his own preaching and the preach-
ing of the other ministers that the opposition was
somewhat broken down.
Thus far in the trial very little had been proved
against Mis. Hutchinson. Her few supporters in
the audience were drawing a sigh of relief as John
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ANNE HUTCHINSON. 16
Cotton concluded and William Coddingfton, her
one friendly judge, thought he saw a chance for the
woman whom he felt to be unjustly accused.
Then, suddenly, of her own accord, she intro-
duced the subject of revelations, and, in the words
of her antagonist. Parson Wilson, *' her own mouth
delivered her into the power of the court."
With a calm and dispassionate fervor she recited
her story of miraculous visions, while the court
listened with silent but open astonishment. Her
closing words rang out with terrible distinctness
through the little meeting-house :
" I fear none but the great Jehovah which hath
foretold me these things," she cried; "and I do
verily believe that he will deliver me out of your
hands. Therefore take heed how you proceed
against me ; for I know that for this you go about
to do me, God will ruin you and your posterity and
the whole state."
After these audacious words there was a momen-
tary pause of triumph among her enemies, of dis-
may among her friends. Then the clergy and the
whole court hurled at her bitter reproofs, invec-
tives, and denunciations. To their minds, by her
own voice she had proved herself guilty of an
atrocious heresy ; for to the Puritans of that
illiberal day belief in personal revelation was a
grave sin, and to threaten the disruption of the
colony was worse than blasphemy.
Then Winthrop rose, stern and judicial :
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16 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" Is it the opinion of the court," he demanded,
"that, for the troublesomeness of her spirit and
the danger of her cause, this woman. Mistress Anne
Hutchinson, be banished from the colony? "
Only three hands were lifted in opposition. The
court was overwhelmingly against her.
The governor turned to Anne Hutchinson.
There may have been some pity in his heart for the
daring and brilliant woman before him. To Anne
Hutchinson, however, his eyes looked unsjrm-
pathetic, hard, even cruel.
" Mistress Hutchinson," said the governor,
" hear now the sentence of the court. It is that
you are banished out of our jurisdiction as being a
woman not fit for our society, and you are to be
imprisoned until the court shall send you away."
At these harsh and authoritative words there
was a glimmer of the old defiance in Anne Hutch-
inson's face.
" I desire to know wherefore I am banished," she
exclaimed.
" Say no more," came the stem rejoinder. " The
court knows wherefore, and is satisfied."
The sentence, as taken from the records of
Massachusetts Bay colony, reads as follows — for
us it answers Mrs. Hutchinson's query:
" Mrs. Hutchinson being convicted for traducing
the ministers, she declared voluntarily the revela-
tions for her ground, and that she should be de-
livered, and the court ruined and their posterity ;
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ANNE HUTCHINSON. 17
and thereupon was banished, and meanwhile was
committed to Mr. Joseph Weld until the court
should dispose of her."
Mrs. Hutchinson's captivity at the house of
Joseph Weld in Roxbury must have been tedioujs
and wearing, but it can scarcely have been lonely.
Although none of her friends except her own
family were permitted to see her, lest she might do
further harm by spreading her heresies, the elders
and ministers of the church were most diligent in
their attendance upon her. They came at all hours
to discuss and reason with her. Their topics of
conversation seem to us but the vague points of
theological dispute, neither interesting nor intelli-
gible. To Mrs. Hutchinson, however, these relig-
ious talks were stimulating ; in her peculiar condi-
tion of mind and body they were even intoxicating.
During these talks, we are told, she gave out more
opinions and revelations than ever before.
In a way she enjoyed her imprisonment. She
was still the most noted woman in the colony.
Her rdle of persecuted prophetess became her.
She grew more and more eloquent, and, careless of
consequences, opened her mouth and talked freely
to the visiting clergy.
The conduct of the eminent Mr. Cotton at this
period is anything but edifying, and it must have
been to Mrs. Hutchinson fairly heart-rending.
Finding that his position in the controversy and
his sympathy for Mrs. Hutchinson were not popu-
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18 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
lar, but rather endangering to his peace and happi-
ness, John Cotton conveniently shifted his ground
and converted his sympathy into open opposition.
He became foremost in the pursuit of the heretics
and the heresies for which Mrs. Hutchinson was re-
sponsible. The honored teacher for whom she had
left her English home to cross the ocean and brave
the wilderness, to whom she had looked for guid-
ance and sympathy and support, had abandoned
her, and was walking in the path laid out by his
brother ministers. He was somewhat bespattered
in his muddy walk, but he was safe.
When spring and milder weather came, Mrs.
Hutchinson was to leave the colony. But, before
she departed, the ministers and elders had prepared
for her one last ordeal. In their talks with her
they discovered that she had " gross errors to the
number of thirty or thereabouts ; " so they made a
list of these ^^ errors " and sent it in the form of an
indictment to the Boston church. Thereupon the
church at Boston summoned Mrs. Hutchinson to
appear, that she might make answer to the accusar
tion and receive the sentence of excommunication.
Excommunication was spiritual disinheritance.
Anne Hutchinson was an irreligious daughter, and
in the presence of her brothers and sisters of the
church she was to be reprimanded by her fathers,
the elders, and publicly cast out as an unworthy
member.
Late in March, then, she returned to her Boston
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ANNE HUTCHINSON 19
home. There were few friendly faces to greet her.
Her husband and brother and neariy all upon whom
she might rely were away seeking places of refuge
against their coming exile.
The spring was early that year in New England,
but in Boston the same harsh east wind gave her
a chilling reception. The Boston meeting-house
looked gloomy and forbidding. As she entered
and took her seat and looked into the faces of the
elders and ministers, the sweet hope-breathing
blossoms of early spring that she had left behind
her in the Roxbury meadows were forgotten. She
felt as though she were caught between the hard,
gray walls of a prison. This atmosphere of gray-
ness and rigidity pervaded everything. It was in
the dreariness of the building, the stiffness of the
furniture, the sombre dress and intense expression
of the spectators, and the severe, unrelenting looks
of the clergy. The spirit of liberty had not yet
come to Boston-town.
When she had taken the place assigned her, one
of the elders rose, called her by name, and read the
list of twenty-nine heretical opinions for which she
was called to account. After the reading of this
indictment Mrs. Hutchinson scanned the faces of
her inquisitors.
" By what precept of holy writ," she demanded,
a tremor of indignation creeping into her voice,
" did the elders of the church come to me in my
place of confinement pretending that they sought
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20 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
light, when in reality they came to entrap and
betray me ? "
After thus accusing them of double-dealing, she
went on to declare that the twenty-nine "gross
errors " with which she was charged were really the
result of her unjust imprisonment. She defended
her heretical opinions with spirit, and " returned,"
so it was alleged, " froward speeches to some who
spake to her."
From ten in the morning until late in the day a
iire of texts and biblical references raged with a
storm of queries and assertions, and when evening
fell they were still discussing only the fourth of the
twenty-nine opinions. Finally the people began to
realize that they were both hungry and tired. The
ministers, in spite of their spiritual office, were also
conscious of hunger and fatigue. I fear that they
grew cross with this headstrong woman, who was
able to out-talk and even to out-endure them all.
So they decided to administer a stem admonition
to this obstinate sister who would not be convinced.
The announcement of a public reprimand caused
a stir in the audience, and two young men, seated
together well toward the pulpit, seemed especially
excited. The younger of the two was a handsome
fellow with a certain dignity and independence of
manner that suggested Anne Hutchinson. The
elder was of the sturdy, stocky, English type that
tells alike of firmness and fearlessness, a specimen
of real English grit.
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ANNE HUTCHINSON. 21
Scarcely had the judges decreed a public repri-
mand when the younger of the two sprang to his
feet.
" By what rule," he exclaimed with heat, as he
faced the elders and the clergy, " might one be
guided in expressing his dissent to this measure ? "
* The ministers and elders looked aghast at this
audacious boy who dared to question their deci-
sion. In their surprise they made no reply to the
question raised by young Hutchinson, for he who
ventured to raise a demur in the assembly was
Anne Hutchinson's own son. His companion, who
was Thomas Savage, Mrs. Hutchinson's son-in-law,
then rose and spoke more deliberately, but with
equal antagonism.
^^ My mother is not accused of any heinous act,
but only of an opinion held by her upon which she
desires information and light rather than peremp-
torily to hold to it. I cannot, therefore, see why
the church should yet proceed to admonish her."
At these still more daring words the amazement
among clei^ and elders grew. Then Thomas
Oliver, one of the elders, remarked that it was " a
grief to his spirit " to see these two brethren ques-
tion the proceedings of the church, and he advanced
the original proposition that the meeting should
show its displeasure toward them by including
them also in the reprimand decreed against Mis-
tress Hutchinson, " in order that the church might
act in unison."
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22 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Thereupon this novel suggestion for silencing
opposition was put to vote, and, as no one dared
to disagree, the matter was carried without dis-
sent.
Then John Cotton rose and delivered a very-
eloquent admonition to Mrs. Hutchinson and her
two sons, asserting that these two young men, who
had dared to do a filial act, had " torn the very
bowels of their souls by hardening their mother in
sin."
That ended the session for the day, and Anne
Hutchinson was placed in chargre of Mr. Cotton
until the next church meeting, in the hope that he
might "overcome her troublesome spirit."
In making this decision those in authority had
not overestimated John Cotton's influence. Indeed,
he alone was able to accomplish what the united
efforts of the elders, the ministers, and the magis-
trates could not. He induced Anne Hutchinson to
yield to his persuasions and to give up her resist-
ance to authority.
In accordance with her promise, Mrs. Hutchin-
son, at the meeting held in the Boston church the
week following, read, before a crowded house, with
bowed head and in a low tone, her public recanta-
tion. Such meekness of spirit is surprising, con-
sidering her former bold stand. To those who must
admire her original pluck and courage, it may seem
a trifle disappointing to have her yield thus to
John Cotton, and to admit herself defeated by the
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A[/l)R</ >HK DKCLARKD IN RINfilM.' roVK.s."
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ANNE HUTCHINSON, 23
ministeis. Having thus acknowledged herself
beaten, it would, at least, be gratifjring to learn
that the ministers rested satisfied with their tri-
umph.
But they did not. She had not gone far
enough in her humility to suit them, and one
among them brought up her statement, made at
the earlier meeting, that her heretical opinions were
the result of her close imprisonment. Some of the
ministers declared this statement a falsehood, and a
discussion arose as to the precise meaning of Mrs.
Hutchinson's opinions. The discussion trailed off
into unintelligible theories, and clergy, magistrates,
and elders, with the one ^' woman transcendental-
ist,*' are lost to us in the mists and mazes of inde-
finable ideas and the hazy differences of theoretical
thought.
At last, beset on all sides by men hateful to her,
and mocked at by revengeful and triumphant
faces, Anne Hutchinson's spirit of antagonism re-
turned. She could not bring herself to submit to
these hostile persecutors as she had submitted in
private to John Cotton, once her accepted guide.
With the flush of defiance upon her face she turned
upon her foes.
"My judgment is not altered, though my ex-
pression alters," she declared, in ringing tones.
At once the assault began anew. From minis-
ters, magistrates, and elders came a fierce storm of
abuse and a torrent of impetuous words.
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24 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" Her repentance is on paper," shouted one ; *' but
sure her repentance is not in her face."
"You have stepped out of your place," cried
another, scandalized by what he deemed her un-
womanliness. "You have rather been a husband
than a wife, and a preacher than a hearer, a magis-
trate than a subject, and, therefore, you have
thought to carry all things in church and Conunon-
wealth as you would."
"I cannot but acknowledge that the Lord is just
in leaving our sister to pride and lying," said one
self-righteous inquisitor. "I look upon her as a
dangerous instrument of the devil raised up among
us."
" God hath let her fall into a manifest lie ; yea I
to make a lie," declared another.
" Yea," cried his echo, " not simply to drop a lie,
but to make a lie, to maintain a lie I"
During the onslaught Anne Hutchinson sat
stunned and motionless. The gray walls had
closed upon her. She saw it was useless now to
expect mercy. Only once do we hear her voice,
and then in an appeal for the sympathy she most
craved.
"Our teacher knows my judgment," she said,
turning toward John Cotton. " I never kept my
judgment from him."
But there was no response from her teacher.
John Cotton had abandoned her as unreclaimable.
Then came the hour of Parson Wilson's triumph.
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ANNE HUTCHINSON 25
To him fell the lot of pronouncing the sentence of
excommunication.
" Are ye all of one mind that our sister here be
cast out? " he demanded.
Their silence was his surest answer. And then,
in the voice most hateful to Anne Hutchinson, —
that of the Rev. John Wilson, — came the terrible
words that still sear the story of the old Bay State.
"Thereupon, in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and in the name of the church," he declared,
" I do not only pronounce you worthy to be cast
out, but I do cast you out; and in the name of
Christ I do deliver you up to Satan, that you may
learn no more to blaspheme, to seduce, and to lie ;
and I do account you, from this time forth, to be a
heathen and a publican, and so to be held by all
the brethren and sisters of the congregation, and
of others ; therefore I command you in the name of
Christ Jesus, and of this church, to withdraw your-
self, as a leper, out of 'the congregation."
As Anne Hutchinson in obedience to the mandate
of her judges passed down the aisle and out from
the hushed and horrified meeting, there was but
one who dared to rise and walk beside her. It was
the woman who had been her follower and friend,
young Maiy Dyer, who, at a later day, was to feel
the fatal rigor of Puritan Boston's "discipline."
The two women walked to the door. There
some one, steeped in self-righteousness, said, " The
Lord sanctify this unto you."
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26 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Mrs. Hutchinson turned her clear and steadfast
gaze upon the speaker.
" The Lord judges not as man judges," she re-
plied. " Better to be cast out of the church than
to deny Christ."
The Massachusetts records say that Mrs. Anne
Hutchinson was banished on account of her reve-
lations and excommunicated for a lie. They do
not say that she was too brilliant, too ambitious,
and too progressive for the ministers and magis-
trates of the colony. But the fact remains that
she was. And while it is only fair to the rulers of
the colony to admit that any element of disturb-
ance or sedition, at that time, was a menace to the
welfare of the colony, and that Anne Hutchinson's
voluble tongue was a dangerous one, it is certain
that the ministers were jealous of her power and
feared her leadership.
It is, however, a consolation to know that Mrs.
Hutchinson's own family and friends did not agree
with the harsh judgment of the clergy and magis-
trates of Massachusetts Bay.
They seemed to have been able to put up with
whatever peculiarities may have been hers. Per-
haps her husband was, as Winthrop asserted, a man
of "weak parts," but even weak men have been
known to complain upon occasion. This Mr.
Hutchinson never did. He shared his wife's ex-
communication and banishment without a murmur
against her, so far as we can find. He spoke of
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ANNE HUTCHINSON 27
her to certain messengers from the Boston church
as "a dear saint and servant of God." Indeed,
he must have been a man of some force and abil-
ity, for he died a magistrate of the Rhode Island
colony, to which he and his family had departed.
It is a relief to come upon that one " dear saint "
of William Hutchinson^s, after such clerical terms of
abuse as " breeder of heresies," " American Jezebel,"
and "instrument of Satan." It also speaks well for
the domestic felicity of the Hutchinson family.
Their home in Rhode Island, where Roger Will-
iams welcomed them, was broken up in 1642 by the
death of William Hutchinson. Then, with the
remaining members of her family. Mistress Anne
sought a refuge still farther from the influence of
the hostile Bostonians and made her home in the
outskirts of the Manhattan colony, among the
Dutch, at what is now Pelham Manor near New
Rochelle, where Hutchinson's creek and a tongue
of land still known as '* Anne's Hook " remain as
her only memorials.
She was not long a resident of that quiet land,
for its peace was soon turned into savage war. In
August, 1643, " the Indians set upon them and slew
her and all her family," except one child who was
taken captive. It was a sad blotting-out of a brill-
iant and helpful possibility.
Of course Mrs. Hutchinson's enemies among the
Massachusetts Bay ministers made of her terrible
fate a powerful warning to schismatics and wrong-
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28 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
doers. Her death, so they declared, was God's
judgment on one led away by the wiles of Satan.
Our Puritan forefathers had peculiar notions of
justice, retribution, right and wrong. But we, in
the light of two and a half centuries of progress,
can see in Anne Hutchinson's death no such man-
ifestation of an angiy God, but simply the final
tragedy of her life.
Anne Hutchinson's part in the early history of
Massachusetts is a sad one — a series of disappoint-
ments, defeats, and disasters. Her story is shad-
owed by the gloom of a New England wilderness
and the equal dreariness of the stern Puritan laws.
It is darkened by the clouds of persecution, excom-
munication, and banishment, by the desertion of
friends and the horrors of an Indian massacre.
But she stands out as one of the most notable
and picturesque figures on the first pages of Ameri-
can history — an intellectual force, when intellectu-
ality was esteemed the prerogative of the magistrate
and the minister; a woman who could not be
frightened into an abandonment of her faith; a
woman who had more wit, more daring, and more
real independence than the clergy and rulers of the
State. Her life may be regarded as a prophecy of
that larger liberty for which America has stood for
generations.
About her stoiy there hangs the mystery of a
career little known before she appeared as a dis-
turber of Boston's theological security, and as
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ANNE HUTCHINSON 29
little known after her dramatic struggle with the
authorities of the Bay colony. In recalling the
trials and persecutions she suffered on that occasion,
it is a satisfaction to find that time brought its own
revenge, and that a descendant of the woman whom
Massachusetts cast out, a Hutchinson, came with
the seal of kingly authority to rule the colony as its
last royal governor.
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J
n.
FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR,
THE DEFENDER OF FORT LA TOUR.
Born In France, about 1000.
Died at Port Royal, Nova Bcotla, 1646.
** A woman who hy her heroism and misfortunes was destined
to win romantic immortality in our annals." — Charles O. 2>.
Roberts.
Upon a headland overlooking the Bay of Fundy
and the mouth of the river St. John, where to-day
we see the outskirts of a flourishing city, there
once stood a sturdy stronghold known as Fort La
Tour. Behind high palisades and four stalwart
bastions lived the master of the fort, Sieur Charles
St. Etreinee de la Tour, as supreme in authority
as any feudal lord across the sea. He was secure
from all dangers of the wilderness in his stone for-
tress, with twenty cannon for ordnance and a little
band of Frenchmen and red allies for retainers.
Within his fort a certain rude elegance prevailed,
transported from the castles of old France, with
some few heirlooms and ancestral treasures. At
his board there was always an abundance ; fish and
31
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32 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
game in their season, fresh from the sea and inland
streams and the great forests of fir and balsam.
And the yearly ship from France brought such
luxuries and comforts as could not be obtained in
the wilds of Acady.
Charles La Tour was a soldier-trader. He kept
up a course of military training among his men,
and he trafficked with his neighbors in furs and
fish. To his stronghold came Indian hunters from
the St. Lawrence and the rivers of Maine, English
fishers from Pemaquid and Monhegan, and mer-
chants from the distant colony of Massachusetts
Bay. Cold evenings in the long northern winters,
stem-visaged men gathered round his blazing
hearth and smoked the pipe of peace while they
told tales of Indian raids, shipwrecks, and adven-
tures with the beasts of the forest.
In character La Tour was a bold, unscrupulous,
enterprising man, hardened by his wild life of the
woods ; in business he was shrewd, growing rich
on his furs and fish ; in politics he was firm, under
all changes of government and kings at home, un-
wavering in his allegiance to Charles La Tour and
Charles La Tour's interests ; in religion he was like
Malvolio, a " time-pleaser," — he called himself a
Huguenot except when it suited his purpose to
be a Jesuit. He was, indeed, a very earthly man,
with earthly ambitions, earthly loves, and earthly
hates. And withal, he was a finished courtier. In
spite of his rough life, he showed the stamp of his
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 88
lordly ancestry. He was said to be a man of " pres-
ence " and " persuasion."
La Tour did not reign alone. About 1625 he
had married Frances Mary Jacqueline, who has
been described as "a remarkable woman or an
uncommon man." She was a creature of splendid
spirit and energy. The blood of the Huguenots
who fought for religious liberty at Ivry and La
Rochelle was in her veins, and her hard life in the
wilderness had developed her powers of masculine
courage and endurance. She became her husband's
able partner in the management of his business
and the defence of his rights and his home.
Madame La Tour led a busy life. She helped in
superintending the building of forts and the setting
of nets, and when there was need she could spear
the salmon and the cod or bring down the partridge
and the quail. Her hand was steady and her aim
was sure. She would make a good soldier when
occasion came ; so thought all who knew the wife
of Lieutenant^ovemor La Tour. And the sol-
dier husband admired his soldier wife and gave
her the independence and responsibilities of a
man.
Yet, in spite of the fact that she was "a kind of
Amazon," she was a woman of " gentle breeding,"
according to the old records. The softer, more
feminine side of her nature showed in her life at
home, the time spent within the four walls of her
fortress. She prayed in her chapel, looked after
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34 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
her little children, and taught her Indian people.
She baked fine bread and sweetmeats for her
husband and his retainers, and when the traders
and trappers came she served them with wine and
meat. But she did not shudder when they told
their stories of peril and bloodshed. She was too
much the soldier for any " womanish weakness."
At different periods her husband had a trading
post on the Penobscot, interests in the Port Royal
Colony, and a fort on the bold cliffs of Cape Sable.
So Madame La Tour gained an intimate knowl-
edge of large tracts of territory in New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, and our own State of Maine.
There comes a picture of this woman of steady
poise, firm look, and clear, f arnseeing eyes, following
the paths made by the wild beasts over the
mountains, gliding through smooth waters in her
birch canoe, or sailing in her swift shallop across
the waters of the Bay of Fundy, the mists clinging
to her mast and the spray dashing across her bows.
She grew to love Acadia, its wildness and its
freedom. In its vast solitude familiar sights and
sounds filled her with deep content, the notes of
blackbird, thrush, and woodpigeon, the waves
dancing in sunlight across the bay, the trout
shining bright and silvery under the clear waters
of the river, and the rustling of the rabbit in the
bushes.
She and her practical husband Charles La Tour
would have lived happy, prosperous, and safe in
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 36
their romantic woodland home, had it not been for
the rival chief over the bay. On a clear day La
Tour and his lady could distinguish a line of blue
hills across the water, directly opposite, and they
knew that behind those misty heights, in the colony
of Port Royal, dwelt their bitterest enemy. Seigneur
D'Aulnay Charnis^, a Jesuit, a man as ambitious
and daring as La Tour himself.
It was the most natural thing in the world that
La Tour and Charnis^ should have quarrelled.
They both held commissions from the French gov-
ernment as the king's lieutenant in Acadia. They
ruled in the same land and engaged in the same
trade. Each was in the way of the other.
Charuis^ was the aggressive one. He recog-
nized the advantages of La Tour's position in his
post on the St. John, and he " wrathfuUy " made
up his mind that he himself would have that fort.
During their boyhood and young manhood,
while La Tour had lived a life of deprivation and
hardship in the Acadian woods with the French
adventurer Biencourt, Charnis^ had been growing
in the knowledge of diplomacy at the French
court. La Tour was almost a stranger in France,
but Charnis^ was a man of influence there and a
favorite with Richelieu. So when Charnis^ set about
working the ruin of his rival he began by trying to
damage La Tour's reputation with the French
government. At first he met with small success,
but he was so persistent and so perfect in artifice
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86 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
that he finally got what he had been seeking — the
king's order for La Tour's arrest.
La Tour, however, was not easily managed. He
would not allow himself to be bullied into sub-
mission by Chamis^, Richelieu, the king, and the
whole French court. When the warrant for his
seizure was flourished in his face he felt the hilt of
his sword, looked with increasing confidence at
his cannon, his strong walls, his faithful soldiers,
and his valiant wife. Then, with suave insolence,
he smiled into the face of his enemy and refused
to be arrested.
And Charnis^, who at the time had not suffi-
cient force to attack Fort La Tour, was obliged to
withdraw for the present. But of course he did not
fail to send back word of La Tour's defiance, and
in a short time he was again in France, strengthen-
ing himself at court and obtaining assistance for
the destruction of his rival.
MeanwhQe La Tour, a commissionless rebel,
held the fort for no king but La Tour. Yet, with
all his self-reliance and easy optimism, he foresaw
his danger in the coming crisis. Charnis^, of him-
self, was not at all formidable in his eyes; but
Charnis^, supported by the whole French govern-
ment, might speedily wipe out Fort La Tour, its
commander, and all belonging to him. La Tour
as well as Chamis^ must look for help from with-
out. Naturally, he stood no chance at the French
court ; but there was his wife's Huguenot city of
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 87
La Rochelle, and there were his neighbors, the
New Englanders ; he was not so badly off, after all.
Considering thus, La Tour acted accordingly and
sent messengers across the ocean to La Rochelle and
down the coast to the little town of Boston.
There were delays, however, and Chamis^ was
prepared for the attack before La Tour was ready
to resist him.
One cloudy spring morning La Tour and his
wife were within their fort talking hopefully of
the expected arrival of the ship " Clement " with
supplies and reenforcements from La Rochelle,
when the fog suddenly lifted from the bay and
disclosed three ships and several ^^ smaller crafts "
gliding quietly into the harbor. There was no
doubt in the minds of Monsieur and Madame La
Tour as to who commanded the fleet. They knew
that they had now to deal with Seigneur D' Aulnay
Chamis^ in earnest.
Like lightning came La Tour's commands. Be-
fore Chamis^ had disembarked his five hundred
men every soldier in Fort La Tour was at his post,
among them Lady La Tonr dauntlessly directing
the cannonading. And when Charnis^, at the
head of his troops, made a swift charge up the
embankment he was met with a fierce volley of
shot from bastion and palisade. The stone walls
of the fort received the fire of the besiegers in
serene contempt. Chamis^ was obliged to retire
in a passion and resort to slower methods.
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88 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
He straightway proceeded to blockade fort and
harbor. The outlaw chieftain and his amazon wife
should submit to Seigneur D'Aulnay Chamis^ or
starve. So he thought to hiuLself as he paced the
deck of his ship and waited impatiently for hunger
to do its work.
Meanwhile, the "Clement" arrived from La
RocheUe ; but, on account of the blockade, it could
not enter the harbor. At the fort they spied it
through a glass and signalled to it. Then, one
moonless night, La Tour and madame stepped into
their shallop and slipped quietly out with the tide.
The pines and cliffs of the shore were left behind
and the sound of men's voices on the ships of the
besieger died away as their boat glided on toward
the " Clement." They were soon upon its deck,
setting sail for Boston, and before dawn the ex-
governor and his wife were beyond the sight and
power of their enemy, Charnis^.
On the pleasant June afternoon when the " Cle-
ment " arrived in Boston harbor. Dr. Cotton was
writing at his study window, and Governor Win-
throp was in his garden on his island with " his
wife and his sons and his son's wife." It was the
year 1643, when the town of Boston was very quiet
and peaceful. Young Harry Vane was no longer
there with his impulses and impetuosities, nor
brilliant Anne Hutchinson with her " Antinomian
heresies." A pleasant calm had succeeded the
storm aroused by these two vehement persons,
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 39
and things were going smoothly, and, in the minds
of some worldly-minded folk, rather dully in the
little Puritan "city."
At the moment of La Tour's coming, Dr. Cot-
ton was nibbling his quill and thinking hard about
theology, and Governor Winthrop was bending
with some pride over his bed of flourishing carrots
and cabbages. The notion of French ships and
French invaders was far from their thoughts. Cas-
tle Island was deserted, and the " Clement " sa-
luted and passed by without receiving answer.
The wife of Captain Gibbons, with her children,
was being rowed down the harbor to her husband's
farm on PuUen Point, the Winthrop of to-day,
when she suddenly descried the ship with French
colors flying from the mast, and French soldiers
crowding the deck. The poor woman was much
frightened and implored her rowers to hasten and
land at the governor's garden, which, by the way,
is the present site of Fort Winthrop in Boston
harbor. But one of the " Clement's " crew had
abeady recognized Mistress Gibbons as an old
acquaintance. So La Tour manned his shallop
and was hurrying after her to speak with her.
And as Winthrop and his family looked up from
their carrots and cabbages, they beheld a badly
scared woman-neighbor flying before a boatload of
much amused French adventurers. It was a rude
awakening from agricultural dreams.
Here was Boston at the mercy of the Acadian
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40 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
governor. " He might," as Winthrop affirmed,
^^have gone and spoiled Boston and taken the
ships and sailed away without danger of resist-
ance." But instead, he landed quite peaceably,
exchanged " salutations " with the governor, and
told the cause of his coming — that the "Cle-
ment " had been sent to him from France, but his
old enemy, Charnis^, had blockaded the river St-
John so that she could not get in, and that he had,
accordingly, slipped out of the river in a shallop
by night and come to ask help from the " good,
kind people of Boston." La Tour spoke with his
usual powers of " persuasion," and Winthrop was
impressed with his good will toward the Puritan
colony.
The La Tours and Mistress Gibbons took tea
with the Winthrops that night. The quiet do-
mestic scene around the supper table must have
brought a feeling of pleasant restfulness to Ma-
dame La Tour, whose ear had become so accus-
tomed to noises of war and turmoil. Without
the open window all was still, and within, the
sweet, delicate face of the governor's wife, Mar-
garet Winthrop, was smiling cordially over the
teacups, and the dignified host was gravely atten-
tive to the wants of his guests. The French
woman had not been in so homelike an atmos-
phere since the days of her girlhood at La Rochelle.
To find herself once more in the company of so re-
fined a gentleman and gentlewoman as John Win-
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 41
throp and his wife, must have been a satisfaction
to this woman of equally " gentle " breeding.
Madame's husband, we may be sure, was as cheer-
ful and suave as usual. All through supper he
talked like an ardent Protestant. Madame, too,
spoke of her Huguenot faith, but with this differ-
ence, — she was sincere. La Tour showed great
interest in his host's vegetables, and praised his
government of the colony. He was, indeed, gen-
erally agreeable and entertaining. And madame
also was charming and delighted the company with
lively tales of her adventures in the forest and as
a soldier in her husband's fort. Margaret Win-
throp's eyes opened wide with wonder as she lis-
tened to the daring woman. She would not have
liked to change places with Madame La Tour.
In the meantime news of the arrival of a French
ship spread through the town. The people were
alarmed for their governor, and after supper three
shallops filled with armed men came to escort
him to his "city" home. But Winthrop, as we
know, was confident of La Tour's friendliness, and
sending Mistress Gibbons home in his own boat
be saUed up to the town in La Tour's shallop.
On landing, the La Tours were escorted by the
governor and a guard to their lodgings at the
home of Captain Gibbons. The captain's house
stood on what is now the east side of Washington
street, near the foot of Comhill. It was on a bend
of the cove, and as Madame La Tour woke each
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42 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
day she could look out upon the harbor with its
green marshes and islands glowing in the morning
light.
Monsieur and Madame La Tour stayed in Boston
until the fourteenth of July. This visit of the
feudal chief and his wife greatly enlivened the
Puritan town. The governor and magistrates de-
bated long and heatedly the matter of aiding La
Tour. Some were of the opinion that it was
wrong for Christians to have to do in any way
with " idolaters " — these discerning Puritans had
their doubts as to La Tour's sincerity in Prot-
estantism, — while others declared it was always
Christian to help a brother in distress. As was
their custom in all perplexities, they consulted
their Bible, and quoted largely from the examples
of Jehoshaphat, Ahab, Ahaziah, Josias, the King of
Babylon, Solomon, and the Queen of Sheba, and
precedents of similar character, " the relevancy of
which is not very apparent."
And while these discussions were going on La
Tour was allowed to land his men " in small com-
panies that our women might not be affrighted by
them." Then there were reviews of the French
and English troops on the Common, which the
women attended, some rather fearfully and others,
like Madame La Tour, with spirit and enthusiasm.
Madame was probably proud of those French " mili-
tary movements " that so interested the governor
and magistrates.
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 48
During their jaunt in Boston the La Tours
were dined and entertained courteously, and we
may truly say that they were well received by the
** first families " of Boston. But the other towns
of the colony disapproved, and letters poured in
on the governor '* charging sin upon the conscience
in all these proceedings," and one "judicious"
parson predicted that before Boston was rid of the
French stranger, blood would be spilled in the
streets.
The "French stranger," however, behaved ad-
mirably. Winthrop records that he "came duly
to our church meetings and always accompanied
the governor to and from thence." La Tour was
a sly fellow. He knew how to win the approval
of his Boston friends. Of what was he thinking
as he sat, with bowed head and solemn face, under
the preaching of the eloquent Doctor Cotton ? Not
of things spiritual, we may be sure. But madame
his wife was certainly a good Christian, and prob-
ably treasured some of the good doctor's words to
her dying day.
The upshot of it all was that the Bostonians, too
prudent to give direct aid to La Tour, allowed
him to make any arrangements he could with the
inhabitants of the town and the masters of the
vessels in the harbor. So he hired from Captain
Gibbons and Thomas Hawkins four ships with
ordnance and fighting men. And when Monsieur
and Madame La Tour set sail with their fleet the
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44 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
dignitaries of Boston escorted them to the wharf
and cheered them with good wishes. It was quite
evident that the Frenchman and his wife were
well liked bj their Puritan friends.
All this time Charnis^ had been waiting in his
ship and wondering at the stern stuff of which his
rival was made. And he smiled maliciously as he
reflected that it was only a question of time. In
the end La Tour must give in.
Suddenly round the bend in the shore came the
fleet of five ships. On the deck of one stood La
Tour ready for fight. Charnis^ then, for the first
time, saw that his enemy had escaped him and that
he had returned revengeful and triumphant. The
outwitted chief did not make a trial of strength
with his rival. He speedily hoisted sail and was
off for Port Royal. And behind him La Tour fol-
lowed quickly. The tables were turned indeed.
Arrived in his Port Royal harbor, Charnis^ ran
his ships aground and he and his men fortified
themselves in their stronghold. La Tour was for
making a united attack upon Chamis^'s fort im-
mediately, but the Boston captains did not share
La Tour's hatred for his rival and had scruples
about carrying the war into the enemy's camp.
However, they allowed those of the men who
wished, to volunteer, and a charge was made in
which three men fell on each side.
After this rather fruitless sally, La Tour cap-
tured a pinnace belonging to Charnis^. Upon this
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 46
event, the Puritan conscience seems to have dis-
appeared. The Bostonians gladly " went halves"
with La Tour and his Frenchmen in the division
of booty and, before the close of the day, Chamis^
had lost besides his three men a boatload of valu-
able moose and beaver skins.
La Tour had done his rival all the harm he
could for the present, and returned to his own
fort to prepare for Chamis^'s next attack, which
he knew must come soon. Although he parted
from the Boston captains with a show of friendli-
ness, he cherished a secret grudge against them for
spoiling his victory by refusing to take part in the
attack. But then, what could he expect ? They
were only Englishmen, he reflected; his wife's
people, the French Huguenots, would serve him
better. And Madame La Tour was forthwith
despatched to La Rochelle. La Tour relied on
his wife's cleverness. He felt that she would
manage for him better than any other messenger
he could send.
What must have been the thoughts of Madame
La Tour as she journeyed over the summer sea to
La Rochelle? She had left France a girl. She
was returning after many years to her old home.
Recollections crowded upon her; memories that,
for fear of discontent, she had tried to forget dur-
ing her life in the shaggy forests. As she looked
into the face of the sky, so blue by day, by night
so bright with stars, and as she listened to the rush
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46 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
of the water against her boatside and smelt the salt
of the sea, she saw the narrow, winding streets of
La Rochelle, the familiar houses with the quaint
carving on the doorways, and the faces of her
childhood's friends. She would be glad to tread
the streets once more, to enter the remembered
halls, and feel the welcoming hand-shake.
But she would find France changed to her.
Though her own heart was loyal, enemies had
sprung up ; men who called her husband rebel and
traitor, who hated her as they hated him. Her
thoughts went back to her husband and her
children, and the country she was leaving. Acadia,
not France, was her homeland now, the place of
vast forests and clear waters and jagged cliffs,
where she had labored and suffered and enjoyed so
much. And, like a good Huguenot, she knelt and
prayed that she might succeed in bringing aid to
the fort that was her only home.
Her worst enemy was in France before her.
Chamis^ was already at the French court, strength-
ening his interests, and when he heard of the
arrival of La Tour's wife he declared that madame
was as big a traitor as her husband and forthwith
procured a warrant for her arrest.
It was but a hurried meeting and parting
Madame La Tour had with her Rochellois friends.
She was warned that Charnis^ was on her track and
she was forced to flee to England. She started on
her way again, and soon all that she could discern
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 47
of the French land she had so longed to revisit
was the low regular line of the coast, and the shore
birds who were following the boat out to sea.
As soon as she reached England she quickly set
about her business and freighted a Loudon ship
with provisions and munitions of war for Fort La
Tour ; but first of all she wrote to her husband
explaining the delay, telling of the danger she had
been in from Charnis^, and expressing ardent long-
ings to be back at the fort with the necessary sup-
plies. As she walked about among the London
wharves and warehouses, making her arrangements
with Alderman Berkley, the owner of the ship, and
Bailey, the captain, her thoughts were continually
with the little garrison at the mouth of the St.
John. Perhaps Chamis^ was already besieging it,
and, with this reflection, she implored a speedy
departure.
At last she was off. The sounds of creaking
boom and straining timbers were in her ear, and
the breath of the sea was in her face. It was good
to realize that she was bound for home, and that
she was returning with help for the struggling fort.
Roger Williams, the founder of the Providence
plantations, was on board with her. He had se-
cured his charter, and was carrying it back to his
colony. One can fancy Madame La Tour in con-
versation with the Rhode Island governor: Their
liberal ideas must have made them congenial com-
panions. We can imagine them discussing English
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48 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
and French politics, smiling over the eccentricities
of their Massachusetts friends, and discussing the
possibilities of the American colonies.
And while they were thus engaged, Bailey, their
captain, was looking well to his own interests, and
carrying them far out of their course in oHer that
he might trade with the Indians and grow rich.
After much dallying of this sort, and expostulation
on the part of the passengers, the ship at length
entered the Bay of Fundy, where, to Madame La
Tour, the waves were higher and the spray Salter
than anywhere else in the world. Already she
could almost see the surf breaking on the head-
lands of her rock-bound home, and fancied she heard
the deep roar and backward rush of the sea as it
struck the shore and receded.
She was not, however, destined to realize her
dreams of home so soon. Through the mist a ship
was making toward them. Upon the deck were
French soldiers and Jesuit priests. In one quick
glance, Madame La Tour had recognized the figure
of her enemy standing near the wheel. The next
moment she was hidden in the hold of the London
vessel, listening with dread to Charnis^'s inquiries
concerning her ship and her captain's equivocating
replies. Bailey was assuring the Frenchman that
he was bound direct for Boston, and that there was
no French blood aboard. Cbarnis^, finally, was sat-
isfied and let the ship pass. Then madame emerged
from her hiding-place and laughed with Roger
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 49
Williams and the captain over her narrow escape
and the trick they had played upon Seigneur D' Aul-
nay Charnis^*
But although madame could appreciate the joke,
she was angry, as well she might be. Captain
Bailey's devotion to his own interest had so de-
layed the ship that they were too late to reach and
succor Fort La Tour. Charnis^, it was quite evi-
dent, was cruising to intercept all aid that might
be going there. If Bailey had not been so selfish,
argued madame, she would have been safe within
her stronghold before Charnis^ had crossed the
Atlantic. If Fort La Tour was taken, the London
captain was to blame. And as they left the waters
of the bay behind and made their way along the
coast to Boston, Bailey encountered the rough
edge of madame's tongue. Her temper was thor-
oughly roused against her procrastinating captain.
Madame La Tour had been on the ocean six
months, and absent from her home a whole year,
when she finally landed in Boston and was wel-
comed by her Puritan friends. As soon as she
arrived, we are told, madame commenced her suit
against Bailey, the captain, and Berkley, the con-
signee of the ship.
The trial of these two men came off in the Bos-
ton meeting-house where, a few years before, Anne
Hutchinson had been cast out as an unworthy sis-
ter of the church. The Lady La Tour appeared and
gave her testimony before the ^^ magistrates and a
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60 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
jury of principal men." And she must have made
an impression on those stern and serious individ-
uals, for the court was quite in her favor, and the
jury awarded her damages to the amount of two
hundred pounds. Bailey and Berkley were ar-
rested and, in order to secure their release, they
were obliged to surrender their cargo. They had
learned their lesson. It was not prudent to trifle
with a woman like Madame La Tour.
After reading the story of Anne Hutchinson's
hard times in the Puritan capital one likes to
dwell on this episode in Boston's history. It
shows us that Winthrop and Cotton and even that
crabbed, jealous man, Parson Wilson, had a kindly,
courteous side, although, in their treatment of
Mrs. Hutchinson, we could hardly believe it possi-
ble. They disapproved of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson.
She crossed them and aroused their antagonism.
Madame La Tour was in trouble. She appealed
to their sympathy. Moreover, they liked her,
personally, and they considered her a plucky, able
woman and a devoted wife, well worthy of their
service.
But the support they gave her " caused much
trouble," Winthrop says. Their fault-finding
neighbors, as usual, objected and "two of the
gentlemen " who sided with Madame La Tour were
afterwards arrested in London and fined for their
decision in favor of " the lady."
"The lady," however, kept her goods, and hired
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 61
three ships that were lying in Boston harbor to
carry her home. With many regrets she said
" good-by " to the pleasant room with the canopy
bed at Mistress Gibbons', the green islands and
marsh grasses of the harbor, and the kind, friendly
people who came to see them off. Quiet, conser-
Tative Boston had never seemed so attractive to
her as on that day, when she came to leave it for
the confusion and warfare of Fort La Tour.
About the time of her departure another visitor
appeared in Boston, ^^ one Marie, supposed to be a
friar, but habited like a gentleman." This Mon-
sieur Marie had a great deal to say about Madame
La Tour and her husband. Charles La Tour, ho
declared, was a traitor ; and, as for madame, " she
was known to be the cause of all his contempt and
sedition." From this it may be judged that
Chamis^ was still at his intrigues. He wished to
win the Bostonians to his side as he had done the
king and the French court. This messenger of
his, Marie, had been sent for that purpose.
The Bostonians scented danger. They regretted
having taken any part in the quarrel between the
rival Acadian chiefs. They sought to make friends
with Charnis^ and, at the same time, to keep friends
with La Tour, and behaved in a manner well
matching the conduct of their shrewd and politic
French neighbors.
Meanwhile, Madame La Tour reached her fort in
safety. It seemed good to be back after her
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62 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
wanderings and dangers and she smiled and talked
gayly as she took her place once more in the garri-
son. As her well-freighted ships were unloaded,
she showed with pride what fine stores of provi-
sions and ammunition she had brought back with
her. She had many questions to ask about the
happenings at the fort during -her absence. And
then, as La Tour and his men gathered round and
the wood blazed high in the great fireplace and the
light of the flames danced along the rafters, shone
reflected in the silver tankards, and lighted up her
own dark gypsy-like beauty and the bronzed faces
of the men about her, she told the story of her long
journey. Many deep-mouthed oaths greeted her
reference to Charnis^'s pursuit of her and the order
for her arrest, but there was loud laughing when
she described her escape from him in the Bay of
Fundy.
As they listened, those brave, rough fellows of
the forest exalted her more than ever. What a
queen they had at Fort La Tour, so plucky and so
clever! She had given them renewed life and
strength. For days after her return it was the
Fort La Tour of former times, overflowing with
plenty and good cheer.
But as the supplies began to diminish, moments
of depression returned and increased. So long as
Charnis^ lived and his ships of war were anchored
in Acadian waters there was no peace for Charles
La Tour and those of his fort. Without reen-
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 68
forcement, the little garrison stood no chance
against Charnis^'s superior force. There was noth-
ing to do but to try again for help from outside.
This time La Tour decided to go himself and seek
for it, and he left his fort under the command of
his trusty wife.
Madame La Tour parted from her husband with
encouraging words. But, as she saw his white sail
disappear around the bend in the shore, she turned
and walked back over the steep, rocky path to the
fort, pale-faced and solemn, with a feeling of dread
in her heart.
Two monks passed her at the gate and bowed to
her with cringing deference- They were supposed
to have been kept by La Tour out of allegiance to
King Louis. But madame's Huguenot blood had
always rebelled at entertaining Jesuits, and these
two men she had good reason to dislike. There
was something underhanded and mean in their be-
havior. She recognized them as spies in the em-
ploy of Chamis^. One might have them hanged,
she reflected. But such a course seemed to her
cowardly. As she faced them, her contempt for
them shone in her eyes, and she said shortly :
** You may go. I have no further need of you."
The men drew their friars' robes about them and
departed with sinister smiles. They went direct
to Chamis^ and reported the situation at Fort La
Tour : the food was low, the powder nearly gone,
and the garrison weak and under the command of
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64 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
a woman, they said. Chamis^ exulted. The mo-
ment had come for him to renew the attack.
Prom the lonely ramparts by the sea the
watchers at the fort could see Charnis^'s cruisers
flitting to and fro beyond the harbor mouth, wait-
ing to catch La Tour on his return. Suddenly
there was a movement of concerted action among
the ships. Chamis^ was closing in with his fleet
toward the walls of Fort La Tour.
The assault began on a February morning. The
Acadian world was white and cold. Fort La Tour
rose on its rocky heights like an ice palace glisten-
ing in the sunshine. Behind every gun and can-
non in the castle was a determined flghting-man,
and on one of the bastions stood a woman of sol-
dierly bearing. Madame La Tour's sure aim and
steady hand did not fail her on that day. Her
commands came in quick, distinct tones. Every
man was inspired by her skill and courage.
In answer to the fire from Chamis^'s warships,
a volley rang out from the cliffs of St. John. Fort
La Tour blazed with the flashes of many heavy
guns, and balls whizzed through the air and rid-
dled the vessels in the harbor. Before night
twenty of Charnis^'s men fell dead on the decks
and thirteen were lying wounded. But the walls
of Fort La Tour stood as firm and impregnable as
the surrounding rocks.
The boats in the harbor were in sorry plight.
Water was pouring into them through the holes
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KW.Kt M ". N \\ \- i\M'lKl-r^ »'.'» hi J^ Kii I Wii V I L K \', I .
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 55
made by the cannon shot. Chamis^ was obliged
to hurry them around the curve in the shore out
of reach of the fort artillery. And there he ran
them aground on the beach. They had barely
escaped sinking.
That night, while there was great enthusiasm
and rejoicing in the castle on the heights, a morti-
fied and enraged French general sat beside his
camp-fire and nursed his hatred against the woman
leader who had worsted him.
Prom February until April those at Port La
Tour watched and waited anxiously. Though
Chamis^ did not renew the attack, he kept a close
blockade in the harbor and no help could arrive.
Madame La Tour and her soldiers were not igno-
rant of their fate. They knew that they were
doomed, but they kept up courage and, with
French spirit, laughed and joked over their din-
ners of dry codfish. But there were times when
the men sat silent and despairing, and 'madame's
brave words failed her. Then, shutting herself
within her chapel, she prayed for hours at a time.
She was preparing for death as her Huguenot
parents had taught her.
"One still spring night," says an Acadian
historian, " came the beginning of the end." The
watchers on the rampart of the fort heard the
" rattling of cables " and " the splash of lowering
boats " in the harbor. The alarm was given and
when at dawn the besiegers made their attack
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56 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
upon the landward and weaker side of the fort,
the desperate little band met them with fury and
again drove them back.
The defenders had no hope, but they were
determined to hold the fort to the last moment,
and the sight of their woman leader, who, in the
midst of shouting, smoke, and firing, remained
clearheaded and courageous, made heroes of them
all. After three days of fighting Charnis^ had
gained no advantage.
But finally, one of La Tour's garrison, a Swiss
guard, was bribed by Charnis^'s offer of gold.
And on Easter morning when Madame La Tour
and her garrison were at prayers in the chapel, the
Swiss traitor on the ramparts did not warn them
as Chamis^'s force was advancing up the cliffs,
but he quietly stole down and opened the gates.
The besiegers were within the palisades. They
had only to scale the inner walls and the fort was
theirs. Here, however, the defenders, led on by
Madame La Tour, rushed upon them. Chamis^'s
men were pouring over the walls on all sides, but
the men of the fort gathered round madame their
commander and fought with such fierceness and
boldness that the besiegers were repulsed again.
Then Chamis^, believing that the garrison
must be larger than he had supposed, and fearing
that he might be forced to suffer the humiliation
of being beaten by a woman a second time, called
for a truce and ^' offered honorable terms." Madame
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FRANCES MARY JACQUELINE LA TOUR. 67
La Tour, to save the blood of her soldiers, agreed
and put her name to the articles of surrender.
The story is that when Charnis^ was within the
fort and looked into the faces of the little starving
band- whom he had feared on the other side of
the wall, he went into a passion and with a harsh
laugh he tore up the capitulation under the eyes
of the woman general. And then, impelled by a
mean, revengeful nature, he took her garrison and
had them hanged man by man, while he forced
madame to stand by, with a halter round her neck,
and watch their agonies.
Madame La Tour never recovered from the shock
of that terrible scene. The slaughter of her
devoted followers, probably even more than the
destruction of her fort or the ruin of her husband's
fortunes, broke her strong, heroic spirit. She died
a few weeks later, a captive at Port Royal, and
was buried on the banks of the St. John.
Of course the tale of the rival chiefis does not
end with the death of Madame La Tour. That
romantic chapter in Acadian history closes drama-
tically with a drowning accident and a wedding.
Chamis^, who had become sole lord of Acadia,
when just at the height of his power, fell into his
"turbid little river" of Port Royal, and was
swept away in its " deep eddies." Whereupon La
Tour, who was always a patient, cheerful man,
returned from his homeless wanderings, stepped
into his rival's shoes, laid hold of all his belongings.
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58 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
and, to make good his own title, married his
enemy's widow, Madame Charnis^. Let us hope
she led him a dance !
They were neither of them very estimable men,
these rival chiefs. It was an age of trickery, greed,
and treachery, and so far as we can judge, La
Tour and Chamis^ possessed the qualities of their
time in full measure. But the heroine of their
story was of a very different sort, and the fame of
Madame La Tour has come down to us from the
stormy period in which she lived as clear and
bright as the rushing waters that swept the shores
of her wild, woodland home.
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III.
MARGARET BRENT,
THE WOMAN BULBR OF MARYLAND.
Born In England abont laOO.
Died at St. Mary's, ICaryland, abont 1661.
** Had ahe been born a queen she would have been as brilliant
and daring as Elizabeth ; had she been born a man she would
have been a Cromwell in her courage and audacity." — John L*
Thomas.
When Charles the First of England gave to
Lord Cecil Baltimore that land in the new world
which he had called Maryland in honor of his queen
Henrietta Maria, he could not foresee that this
Maryland would one day come under the guidance
of a woman who would be likened in brilliancy
and daring to his cousin, Queen Elizabeth, and in
courage and audacity to his judge and successor,
Oliver Cromwell. And yet, not long after King
Charles made that grant of land to his friend
Lord Baltimore, such a woman of queenly daring
and republican courage found her way to the new
colony and into the councils of its leading men,
and her name, Margaret Brent, stands for the most
59
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60 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
vigorous force in the early history of Maryland.
However, she might not have exerted quite so
much influence over those first Maryland colonists
had she not stood in the relationship she did to
the governor of Maryland, Leonard Calvert, the
brother of Lord Baltimore. There are some who
think that Margaret Brent was an intimate friend
or kinswoman of Leonard Calvert and there are
others who believe that she was his sweetheart.
The historian who knew the most about her was
of the latter opinion. Doubtless the historian was
right. But we need not decide. It is better to
let the atmosphere of doubt and mystery still
linger about the names of Margaret Brent and
Leonard Calvert and their old-time relationship.
There is a certain charm in the indefiniteness of
her past.
It was in the year 1634 that Leonard Calvert
came to America, bringing over three hundred
colonists, some twenty of them men of wealth and
position. Among those who voyaged with him
were Father White, the good priest who labored
to convert the Indians of the Potomac country,
Thomas Comwaleys, an honest soldier, the Miles
Standish of Maryland, and Thomas Green, a man
of slight ability, the one who succeeded Leonard
Calvert in the government of the colony. These
three hundred English colonists sailed into that
great bay of four leagues width, the Chesapeake,
up that broad river the Potomac, which the Indians
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MARGARET BRENT. 61
told them flowed ''from the sunset" and landed
in a region of glistening sands and waving forest
trees, a country filled in the long summers with
singing birds and a '' millionous multitude " of
wild-flowers. There; where a little river joins the
waters of the Potomac, they founded their city
and they called both the city and the river St.
Mary's. The city has long since vanished, but its
memory still lingers in the river and its name.
Four years after the coming of Leonard Calvert
and those first Maryland settlers, Margaret Brent
arrived in the city of St. Mary's. She had sailed
from England with her sister Mary, her brothers
Giles and Fulk, their servants, and nine other
colonists. It was in November that Mistress Mar-
garet first saw Maryland, then brilliant in the
beauty of an Indian summer. The orioles were still
singing in the forests, the late wild-flowers were
blooming in the crevices of the rocks, and the trees
still kept their foliage of red and gold. Mistress
Margaret must have felt with those other early
Maryland colonists that the air of her new home
was ''like the breath of Heaven;" that she had
entered " Paradise."
Margaret Brent, her sister and brothers were
received in all honor by Governor Calvert. Giles
was at once appointed member of the Council and
was advanced from one position to another until
finally, in the year 1648, when Leonard Calvert was
called to England, he was made acting governor.
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62 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Giles Brent's individual merit hardly justified his
rapid rise to power. He was a loyal, zealous man,
but there were other men in the colony equally
loyal and zealous and at the same time more able
and popular than he ; Thomas Comwaleys was
one of these. So it has been surmised that per-
haps Mistress Margaret was the cause of Giles's
high favor with Governor Calvert. Governor Cal-
vert was ever eager to please the woman who was
his friend, cousin, or sweetheart, as the case may
have been, and in making his appointments he was
not likely to forget that Giles was Margaret's
brother.
The whole Brent family, the women as well as
the men, played an active, prominent part in the
affairs of the colony. Immediately after their ar-
rival they took up land in the town and on Kent
Island, built themselves manor houses, and carried
on a prosperous business.
Margaret became as wise as her brothers, or even
wiser, in the intricacies of the English law ruling
estates and decedents. We hear of her registering
cattle marks, buying and selling property, and sign-
ing herself " Attorney for my brother."
Indeed, she was so much engaged in her land
operations and business of all sorts that she had
no time to think of love. Governor Calvert and
all the gentlemen of his Council might importune
her. Still she remained Mistress Margaret Brent
and, like the great English queen to whom she has
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MARGARET BRENT. 63
been compared, chose to retain, in spite of lovers'
pleadings, the sovereignty of her own heart and
hand.
Nevertheless, though she would not be wooed
and won, she ruled royally among her little court
of admirers at St. Mary's. We wonder at her in-
fluence and power and can only understand them
when we come to know her. As we look into the
early records of the Maryland colony and catch
those rare glimpses of Mistress Margaret, we find
that she was no ordinary person. She was, indeed,
a woman of brtiins, courage, and executive ability.
She knew people and was able to manage them and
their aflfairs with remarkable tact. Moreover, al-
though she was no longer very young, she could
still pleaise and fascinate. And so it is not sur-
prising that she became in effect, if not in fact, the
woman ruler of Maryland.
One would like to know where Mistress Mar-
garet was when Claybome, the Puritan claimant to
Kent Island, and the pirate Ingles made raids upon
her home. At that time Governor Calvert, who
had just returned from England, was forced by the
invaders to flee to Virginia and many Marylanders,
loyal to him, went with him. Perhaps Mistress
Margaret was one of those who shared his exile,
or perhaps, in her fearlessness and daring, she re-
mained in Maryland to look after his estates, her
brothers', and her own.
Two years passed before Governor Calvert was
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64 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
able to put down the rebellion and return to his
colony. But he did not live long to enjoy the
peace that followed. He died in the summer of
1647, when he was still a comparatively young
man. As he had neither wife nor children, there
was much wondering as to whom he would appoint
his heir and many thought of his brother, Lord
Baltimore, who had met with recent losses at home
and in the province.
Thomas Green with a few others of the Gov-
ernor's Council and Mary and Margaret Brent were
with him just before he died. He named Thomas
Green his successor as governor. Then his eyes
rested upon Margaret Brent, perhaps with love,
at least with confidence and admiration. There
was no one in the colony so wise, so able, so loyal
as she. Leonard 6alvert had always known that.
Pointing to her so that all might see and under-
stand, he made the will that has come down to us
as the shortest one on record. " I make you my
sole executrix," he said; "take aU and pay all."
And after he had spoken these words of laconic in-
struction, he asked that all would leave him " ex-
cept Mistress Margaret."
We cannot know what passed between Leonard
Calvert and Margaret Brent in their last interview
and whether it was as friends, cousins, or sweet-
hearts that they said good-by. Margaret never told.
We can only see that it was to her he addressed his
last words and in her placed his " especial trust and
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^^ M MAKh ^C^L MV -Oi.t hXKCUIRIX,' HL .v-\lD; ^ I'AKi: ALL
AND PAY ALL.' '*
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MARGARET BRENT. 65
confidence ; " and that, whatever was the tie that
hound them, for him it was closer than any other.
"Take all and pay all," he had said, and
Margaret Brent determined to carry out his com-
mand to the letter. The first thing that she took
was his house. There was some dispute as to her
title to it ; but Mistress Margaret did not wait for
this dispute to close. She was convinced that her
claim was a good one and being a woman of quick,
decided action, she at once established herself in
the governor's mansion, for she was well ac-
quainted with the old law by which " possession is
nine points." Then, having secured the house, she
collected all of Governor Calvert's property and
took it under her care and management.
This would have been enough for most women.
But Mistress Margaret was not so easily satisfied.
She was determined to have all that was implied
in the phrase " Take all and pay all." So we soon
find her making claim that, since she had been
appointed "executrix" of Leonard Calvert, she
had the right to succeed Leonard Calvert as Lord
Baltimore's attorney and in that character to
receive all the profits and to pay all the debts of
his lordship's estate and to attend to the estate's
pi-eservation.
This declaration astounded the Maryland colo-
nists. They had their doubts as to the legality of
Mistress Margaret's claim and made objection to
it. But she, who was never daunted by opposition,
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66 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
applied to the Provincial Court for an interpreta-
tion of her rights. And the court interpreted in
perfect accordance with Mistress Margaret's wishes.
It is surprising what powers of persuasion she
possessed.
Margaret Brent was soon not only mistress of
Governor Calvert's mansion. By her own decree
and with the sanction of the Provincial Court, she
had become Lord Baltimore's attorney, and in
that dignified position she had control of all the
rents, issues, and profits of his lordship's estate.
The fact that Lord Baltimdre himself knew noth-
ing of all this mattered little to Mistress Margaret
She knew and was satisfied. That was sufficient.
Her next step was more daring than all those
that went before. It was no less than a demand
for vote and representation ; and that two centu-
ries and a half ago, when talk of woman's rights was
as unheard of as the steam engine, or the force of
electricity! Certainly Mistress Margaret was far
in advance of her times.
On the strength of her own assertions she de-
cided that she had as good a claim as any one to a
voice and a seat in the General Assembly. Leon-
ard Calvert in his lifetime, as Lord Baltimore's at-
torney, had the right to vote, she reflected ; and now
since Leonard Calvert was dead and she had suc-
ceeded as his lordship's attorney, it was only fair
that the right to vote should pass on to her.
Her audacity carried her even further. She was
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MARGARET BRENT. 67
Leonard Calvert's "executrix," she told herself,
and was entitled to a vote in that capacity. And
30, she concluded, she had the right to two votes
In the General Assembly.
No one but Margaret Brent would have medi-
tated those two votes, one for a foreign lord who
had never authorized her to act for him and the
other for a dead man whose only instructions to
her had been : " Take all and pay all." We can
only wonder at her presumption and ingenious
reasoning, as did a masculine biographer of hers
who was moved to exclaim in admiration of her
daring — " What man would ever have dreamed
of such a thing ! "
Her astonishing stand for woman's rights was
made on the twenty-first of January, 1648. At the
first beat of the drum that used to call the assembly-
men together in the early days of the Maryland
colony. Mistress Margaret started on her way for
Fort St. John's, where the General Assembly was
to meet. There was determination in her eyes and
in her attitude, as she sat erect upon her horse and
rode along over the four miles of snow-covered
road to the fort. She was deciding that at least she
would have her say before the court and show the
justice of her suit.
The assemblymen were expecting a visit from
Margaret Brent. They had some notion of the
mission upon which she was coming and they were
uncertain how to receive it, for they did not like
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68 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
either the thought of granting or of denying her
request. So, when she entered the court room,
they glanced at each other with looks that seemed
to say, " We had better adjourn ; " and Governor
Green, who, if the truth may be told, was always
a little afraid of Mistress Margaret, was the most
disconcerted of all.
Mistress Margaret, however, would not let her-
self be disturbed by the cool reception with which
she was met. Though the court tried to hedge
her about with rules and orders to keep her quiet,
she remained firm in her intention to speak. And
finally, when her opportunity came, she rose and
put forward, for the first time in America, the
claim of a woman's right to sit and vote in a legis-
lative assembly.
We can only imagine the scene that followed
that brief and daring speech of hers in the court
room of Fort St. John's. A wave of startled
wonder and amazement passed over the whole
Assembly. And yet, preposterous as her demand
was to those first Maryland planters, there were
some among them who, moved by her forcible,
persuasive eloquence, would have been willing to
grant her request. But Governor Green, who was
usually so weak and vacillating, became for once
firm and decided and gained control over the
minds of all his assemblymen. He had always
regarded Margaret Brent as his most dangerous
rival and it was his greatest wish to keep her out
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MARGARET BRENT. 69
of power. If he should grant her a seat or a voice
in the Assembly, he reflected, she might manage
to govern all the voting and all the speaking in the
house, and perhaps, for there was no limit to her pre-
sumption, as the attorney of Lord Baltimore, she
might get herself elected governor. It angered him
to remember he had heard it whispered mischiev-
ously through the colony that Mistress Margaret
would make a better governor than Thomas Green.
The time had come, he told himself, when either he
or she must prevail. So he braced himself for prompt
and autocratic action and flatly refused, as the
Maryland records attest, ^^ that the said Mrs. Brent
should have any vote in the house."
" The said Mrs. Brent " did not take her defeat
without protest. She objected vehemently to the
proceedings of the Assembly and departed from
the court room in angry dignity. She had failed
in her purpose; but by her bold stand she had
made for herself a signal record as the first woman
in America to advocate her right to vote.
It was Governor Green who had denied her this
right and yet it was Governor Green who turned
to her for help whenever an emergency arose. And
emergencies were constantly arising in the half-
settled province of Maryland. Soon after the
death of Leonard Calvert, there threatened to be a
mutiny in the army. The soldiers had fought
against Claybome and Ingles for Governor Calvert,
when he was an exile in Virginia, and Governor
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70 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Calvert had promised them that they should be
paid in full " out of the stock and personal property
of his lordship's plantation." Governor Calvert
was dead, the pay was not forthcoming, and the
only course left to the soldiers seemed to be in-
surrection. Governor Green could think of noth-
ing to appease the halfnstarved, indignant troops
and, much against his dignity, he went to Margaret
Brent for aid. As soon as Mistress Margaret heard
of the trouble that was brewing she remembered
the instructions which Leonard Calvert had given
her to " pay all." So without hesitation she sold
cattle belonging to Lord Baltimore and paid off
all the hungry soldiers. This was not the only
time that Mistress Margaret was called upon to
calm an angry army.
News travelled slowly in those early colonial
days and it was some time before Lord Baltimore
heard of all that Margaret Brent was claiming and
doing as his own attorney and the executrix of
his brother. Not really knowing Mistress Margaret,
he was inclined to look upon her as an officious
sort of person who had been "meddling" in his
affairs and he wrote " tartly " and with " bitter in-
vectives " concerning her to the General Assembly.
But the Assembly understood Margaret Brent
better than Lord Baltimore did, and they sent a
spirited reply to him in gallant praise of Margaret
Brent and her wise conduct. They told his lord-
ship, with unconscious humor, tliat they did
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MARGARET BRENT. 71
" verily believe " it was better for his own advan-
tage and the colony's safety that his estate was in
her hands rather than " in any man else's." The
soldiers, the Assembly said, would never have
treated any other with " that civility and respect "
which they always showed to her and when, at times,
they were *' ready to run into mutiny," she was the
only one in all the colony who was able to pacify
them. Indeed, all would have gone '' to ruin," de-
clared the loyal assemblymen, if Mistress Brent had
not been proclaimed his lordship's attorney by order
of the court, and the letter ends with the dignified
but indignant protest that Mistress Brent had
deserved "favor and thanks" from his lordship
rather than all those " bitter invectives " which he
had been pleased to express against her.
The Maryland assemblymen could not give Mis-
tress Margaret the right to vote, but they could
defend her even against the lord of their colony and
declare her the ablest man among them. It must
have made Mistress Margaret herself very proud to
think of the respect and confidence which she in-
spired in her feUow colonists.
To the end of her days Margaret Brent contin-
ued to lead a life of ability and energetic action.
There are occasional glimpses of her later history,
as she flashes across the records of the Maryland
colony always a clear-cut, fearless, vigorous person-
ality. At one time she appears before the Assem-
bly claiming that the tenements belongiug to the
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72 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
rebels within Leonard Calvert's manors should be
under her care and management. Again she
comes pleading her cause against one Thomas Ger-
rard for five thousand pounds of tobacco. At an-
other time she figures as an offender accused of
stealing and killing cattle, only to retort signifi-
cantly that the cattle were her own and to demand
a trial by jury.
In all of these cases and many others too she
seems to have had her way. The General Assem-
bly never denied her anything but the right to vote.
She had only to express a wish in her clear, pei^
suasive fashion and it was granted. In point of
fact, Margaret Brent ruled the colony.
She finally disappears from our view at the age
of fifty-eight in the character of a " mourning sweet-
heart." Neither her mature age nor her strong-
minded notions could scare away her lovers. She
certainly was a remarkable woman in more ways
than one.
When she came for the last time before the Gen-
eral Assembly her hair must have been gray but
her speech no less eloquent and her manner no less
charming than in the days of Leonard Calvert.
We can imagine her, in the presence of the court,
stating with dignity and frankness that she was the
heir of Thomas White, a Maryland gentleman, who,
dying, had left her his whole estate as a proof of
*^his love and affection and of his constant wish to
marry her."
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MARGARET BRENT. 73
One would like to know more of Thomas White,
that truly loyal and devoted Maryland gentleman.
But he appears only in the one i81e, that of Mis-
tress Margaret's lover. For it is quite incongruous
to associate him with that other Thomas White who
owned the place of unromantic name, " The Hog-
pen Tavern." Mistress Margaret's Thomas White
was probably a quiet, gentle, unobtrusive sort of
man who admired in her the daring qualities which
he himself lacked.
It has been suggested that possibly, if Thomas
White had lived, Mistress Margaret might have
been induced at last to resign her independent state
and to take, in place of her own name, that of Mrs.
Thomas White ; that she had grown weary of her
land operations and her duties as executrix and at-
torney and was willing to settle down to a life of
domestic calm. But it is almost impossible to \
think of Margaret Brent as changing her business- '
like, self-reliant nature and meditating love and
matrimony. It is more likely that this interesting
and unusual colonial dame died as she had lived,
loving nothing but the public good and the man-
agement of her own and other people's affairs.
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT,
A COLONIAL TRAVELLER.
Born in Boston, April 10. 1666.
Died Bt New London, Oonnectieut, September 85, 1727.
*^ She was a woman of great energy and talent and mnat haTe
been counted an extraordinary character in those early days."
— Alice Morse Earle.
Derby Billings was meditating going to bed.
She was very sleepy. Her head was nodding and
dropping heavily upon the hard, uneasy back of
her chair and drowsiness had so filled her eyes that
she saw aU things crookedly. The dishes in the
dresser were performing queer antics and the table
and chairs were assuming all sorts of strange atti-
tudes. Debby began to fear the witches were
tormenting her.
Suddenly her ear caught the sound of horses'
hoofs coming nearer and nearer. She straightened
in her chair, rubbed her eyes, stretched herself, and
yawned. It was late for travellers to be on the
road, thought Debby ; could they be coming to the
farm for a night's lodging ?
The noise of the horses' hoofs stopped at the
75
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76 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
farm gate. Debby heard the riders dismount and
some one speak a few words, as though of direction.
Then the door opened and Debby found herself
face to face with a very unexpected guest. She
started from her chair and stared as if she feared
the witches still were tormenting her.
She had not thought to see a traveller in petti-
coats, such handsome petticoats, too, and in the
midst of her alarm at the arrival of so unusual a
guest Debby looked with curious, admiring eyes
at the newcomer's costume, the scarlet cloak and
little round cap of Lincoln green, the puflfed and
{ H^ ruffled sleeves, the petticoat of green drugget-
^ cloth, the high-heeled leather shoes with their green
ribbon bows, and the riding-mask of black velvet
which, Debby remembered to have heard, only
ladies of the highest gentility wore. But as she
gazed, Debby began to have unpleasant feelings,
wondering what could bring so fine a lady to her
door at such an hour, on so dark and disagreeable
a night. The simple but suspecting country wench
was frightened. She retreated a few steps from her
lady guest and exclaimed in excited tones :
" Lawful me, madam, what in the world brings
you here at this time a night? I never see a
woman on the road so dreadful late in all my
'versal life. Who are you ? — where are you going ?
I 'm scared out of my wits."
Madam had taken off her riding-mask and was
surveying Debby in amazement. She appeared to
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 77
be undecided whether or not to answer such im-
pertinent questions.
Just then the door opened again and in came a
man whom Debby recognized as a certain John
whose father kept a tavern at Dedham, twelve
miles away on the Boston turnpike. The girl
turned immediately to him and began addressing
him with her storm of startled queries :
" Is it you, John ? How de do ? Where in the
world are you going with this woman ? Who is
she?"
But John was uncommunicative. He scarcely
looked at Debby. Settling himself on a bench in
one corner of the room, he fumbled in his pocket
and finally brought out a dark, suspicious-looking
bottle to which he straightway gave his entire
attention.
For a moment Debby stared blankly at John
and his black jug. Then her gaze returned to
madam.
Madam was beginning to show signs of im-
patience under all this interrogation. She sighed,
jerked off her gloves, and began tapping the floor
restlessly with her riding-whip. She looked very
tu*ed and her glance wandered significantly to the
nearest chair.
Meanwhile the long silence was increasing
Debby's alarm and she burst out once more with
her questions.
" Lawful heart, ma'am 1 won't you tell me who
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78 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
you are ? " she implored. " Why have you come
here ? Where are you going ? "
Madam frowned. The girl's ill breeding irritated
her. " I think you are treating me very rudely,"
she said in cool, polite tones, " and I do not think
it my duty to answer your unmannerly ques-
tions."
Her words somewhat abashed Debby, who stood
before her guest, nervously rolling the corners of
her apron.
Observing the girl's discomfiture, madam added
more kindly, " My reason for coming here is not so
strange, though you choose to consider it so. I do
but desire a night's lodging, intending to journey
on to-morrow morning, in company with the post."
Debby was not satisfied by this explanation and
she continued to gaze at madam in dazed perplex-
ity. But she recovered her wits enough to think
to ask her guest to be seated.
"Thank you," said madam, sitting down and
eying Debby with an amused expression that the
girl could not understand. " I am glad your chairs
are useful as well as ornamental." Then, glancing
at the silent, bibulous man in the comer, she con-
tinued, " Master John, I '11 warrant you can leave
that black junk of yours long enough to receive
your pay, can't you ? "
The fellow was on his feet in a moment, shufBing
toward her with an expansive grin on his honest
countenance.
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 79
" I shall recommend you," remarked madam in
laughing tones, as she put the money into his
hand, " as a gallant squire to all ladies in distress. . ^ a.a '-^**
But a word of advice, Master John," she added, ^^ '
lowering her voice, " be quicker with the tongue
and slower with the bottle. 'T would improve you (
vastly." y
John's grin returned and then gradually faded ^ ,
away. It was hard to tell whether madam were (/
joking or serious.
It was quite evident, however, that madam was
travel-worn and tired — too travel- worn and tired
for further conversation. Even in the pale candle- ^'^^
light one could see that her handsome petticoat
and neat shoes were splashed with mud and that
the hair beneath her little round cap was loose and
wind-blown. As she sat leaning back in her chair
with half-closed eyes she looked as though she had
found her journey a hard one. For a moment she
remained in that attitude of exhaustion. Then,
addressing Debby, she said wearily, "Will you
have the goodness to show me where I may lodge ? "
adding under her breath, "me thinks I could sleep
on com husks to-night, but hope my patience will
not be taxed to that extent." - )
Debby conducted her guest to an adjoining room ^ ^
and, opening the door, disclosed a little back parlor j^^^ "'
almost filled with a high bedstead, the sight of
which caused madam to raise her eyebrows in
despair. Debby showed the room mechanically and
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80 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
did not cease to wonder and look doubtful. Her
perplexity was not lost upon her guest. As
madam turned at the door and took the candle
which Debby offered her, she looked into the girl's
eyes and laughed, "You can stare, wench," she
said. " I doubt not you will recognize me to-
morrow morning. Good-night and pleasant dreams
to you. Mistress Billings," and with another laugh
and a quick courtesy madam entered her room and
the door closed behind her.
For a moment Debby stood with her glance fixed
on the door through which madam had vanished.
Then she went up to John, who was pocketing his
money and his dark bottle, slowly and safely.
" John," said the girl in a loud whisper, pulling
at his sleeve to get his attention, " who is she ? "
John's only answer was a long shake of the
head.
"But," insisted Debby, "how came you with
her? That you surely can tell me."
John surveyed Debby for several seconds in
silence until the talking mood, which was rare with
him, came upon him. Then he opened his mouth
— it was a broad one — and said :
" About seven o'clock this evening, while I was
a-settin* at father's tavern with the rest of the
boys, in comes mother with a dame who was strange
to us all. Mother, speaking to us, says, 'This
lady wants to get a guide to go with her to
Billings's to meet the post — do any of you men
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 81
care to go along with her, for a sum ? ' At firet j
we all sat staring at our pewter mugs, at mother, (j^^-^t^^-u.^^'j
and most of all at the strange dame who stood ^^JL^ "VmXHv^
back, holding her mask before her face and looking v/^ (•y,,vv?;/v
half as if she did not like the scene she had got f /^ JL ^
into and half as if she did not care. At last I, * ^ i
not minding the thought of the money, and wish-
ing to oblige the lady, riz and says, 'What will
you give me to go with you ? ' ' Give you ? ' says
she, looking straight at me and almost as though
she could see through me, — ' are you John ? ' says
she. ' Yes,' sajrs I, wondering by what powers of
good or evil she had divined my na9ie and then
thinking perchance my mother had told it to her.
'John's my name for want of a better,' says I.
'Well, Mr. John,' says she, 'you look like an
honest man ; make your demands.' ' Why, half a
piece of eight and a dram of whiskey,' says I.
'Agreed,' says she. She gave me my dram on
hand and while I drank it she stood by the hearth,
warming her hands and making a handsome pict- |
ure in the firelight."
Here John paused, surprised by his own elo-
quence.
"Did you hold much speech with her on the
road ? " inquired Debby with interest. She had I
been listening intently to all that John had said
and her curiosity concerning madam was grow-
ing, i
" Yes, considerable," John replied rather proudly.
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82 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" I told her the adventures I had passed in late rid-
ing and the dangers I had escaped and she said,"
added John, with one of his expansive grins,
" that she guessed I must be a prince in disguise."
" But was not madam herself greatly terrified to
be riding so late in the darkness ? " asked Debby,
shuddering at the very thought and haunted by
imaginings of wolves prowling along forest paths,
naked savages shooting from behind trees, and
swift-running rivers that swept horse and rider
away. For beyond the towns the New England
of Debby's day was a wilderness.
'* Not until we had rid about an hour," answered
John. " Then we came to a thick swamp, which
very much startled her, especially by reason of the
heavy fog which made the darkness so great that
she could not see her way before her, as she said.
Here she pulled in her nag and declared she dared
go no further. But I bid her not fear, told her I
had crossed a thousand such swamps, that I knew
this one well, and that we should soon be over.
Thereupon she rallied her courage, gave reins to
her nag, and said with a laugh she would venture
her fate in the swamp rather than stay to perish
like ye babes in the wood."
*• And what did she mean by that, John ? "
queried the ever curious Debby.
John only shook his head by way of reply. Evi-
dently he was not very well versed in literature.
He was pulling on his cap and muffling liis coat
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 83
about him preparatory to departure and had already
returned to his taciturn self.
" Without doubt she is brave," remarked Debby
half to herself. ** But I like not these mystifying
ways," and here Debby fell to rolling the comers
of her apron once more in nervous fashion. An
expression of fear gradually came into her face.
"Lawful heart, Johnl" she whispered, growing
suddenly pale, " do you think — do you think that
perchance she may be a — witch ? "
Master John sent a contemptuous glance in the
trembling Debby's direction. " Humph," said he,
and opening the door he went out into the night.
A few moments later Debby crept to her bed-
chamber, and when she fell asleep it was to dream ,
that the world was overrun with witches in scarlet
cloaks and velvet riding-masks.
Meanwhile the lady who had aroused so many
doubts and tremors in Debby's simple mind was
sleeping peacefully. She did not have upon her
conscience, as Debby had feared, any witchcraft sins
to disturb her slumbers. Indeed, for all her strange
and unexplained appearance, there was nothing
mysterious about her; she was only an honored
gentlewoman of Boston town travelling to New 1
York on business. ^"""^
But there was a great deal that is remarkable
about her. The very fact of her journey makes her^*'^"*^"*^^'^
a woman worthy of note. Travellers in petticoats y4^ 4.**-' *-
were not so common then as nowadays. Indeed
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84 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
it has been said that Madam Knight, for this was
/ the fair traveller's name, was probably the first
V woman to take such a journey on horseback. The
lonely woods of Massachusetts and Connecticut
offered many terrors and " startled " even " mascu-
line courage." As a matter of fact, no man of
>^' New England dared venture twenty miles beyond
:^ the limits of his town until after the church had
\ ^ offered prayers for his safety. No wonder that
}ky madam's feminine courage was tried on her long,
V 1^' difficult, perilous journey and that, as she herself
' v^ confessed, she sometimes became " fearful." Yet,
in spite of her " fearf ulness," she went and returned,
protected only by hired guides, or the western post,
or such travellers as she chanced to meet upon her
way ; and we know from her own words what an
interesting, exciting, trying time she had of it.
Her journal of her travels has come down to us and
Lis a charming bit of " wit and wisdom."
And along with the journal, certain historical
facts relating to the author have descended, so that
we are able to know this Madam Sarah Knight of
colonial days better than did her contemporary,
Mistress Debby Billings. We learn that Sarah
Knight was the daughter of Captain Thomas Kem-
ble and Elizabeth Kemble of Boston town. The
gravestones of madam's father and mother are still
to be seen in the old Copp's Hill burying-ground.
Her father was a prosperous Boston merchant. He
carried on an extensive trade as the American
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 85
agent for a London firm and he was one of those
to whose charge the Scotch prisoners, serving as
" indentured servants," were sent over after Crom-
well's victory at Dunbar.
So far as we can judge. Captain Kemble was a
man of good repute, for the most part circumspect
in his conduct. Only once do we find him falling
from grace ; and this is remarkable, for grace, as
interpreted by his Puritan neighbors, was by no
means easy of attainment. Upon that one occasion
when he did offend, he was severely reprimanded
for his misdemeanor. The tell-tale record brands
him as a malefactor and informs us that he was put
in the stocks two hours for his " lewd and unseemly
behavior," which consisted in his kissing his wife
publicly on the doorsteps of Ins own house when
he had just returned home after a voyage of three
years!
Sarah Kemble Knight was Boston bom and Bos-
ton bred. In the little Puritan city she grew up
with her numerous brothers and sisters, learning to
read and write fluently, probably listening every
Sunday to the preaching of the great Doctor In-
crease Mather, and perhaps — who knows? — fall-
ing in love with one of her father's "indentured
servants."
But, whatever her girlish experiences wore, we
know that she finally married a Boston man, a wid-
ower, Mr. Richard Knight. Nothing much is said
of Madam Knight's husband. We cannot even
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86 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
be sure whether he were dead or only absent in
the fall of the year 1704, when she set out on her
famous journey to New York. That she styled her-
self as " widow " a few years later is positive. In-
deed, she might have been one long before, in so far
as any influence her husband had upon her story.
At the time of her journey Madam Sarah was
living with her widowed mother and her little
daughter Elizabeth in her handsome ** mansion
house " on Moon street, near New North square, in
the neighborhood of the Mathers and not far from
the Franklins. The atmosphere about her house
must have been rather dreary, monotonous, and
comparatively unenlightened. The first American
newspaper, liie " Boston News Letter," had just
been published. Only a few copies were printed
once a week and each copy contained but four or
five square feet of reading matter. Madam's li-
brary cannot have been especially entertaining or
wholly satisfactory to a woman of her brilliant
fancy. A great deal of the best English literature
was as yet unwritten or unknown. The " Specta-
tor " had not appeared, nor any of Pope's verses.
Dr. Johns(mwas not bom and Shakspere was almost
jQi:gQttenJOne wonders how Madam Knight ever
jkept her original humor and lively imagination,
when the conversations of her friends the Mathers,
and other Puritan divines, their sonorous sermons,
and their lugul^rious dissertations on witchcraft,
were the chief sckirce of her intellectual life.
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 87 /
We cannot but feel some indignation against the [
stem Puritan civilization which offered no eriy^
couragement to such wit as Madam Sarah'sJ^To JLtA.^^^^
be sure, her talent for letters ran in a lighter vein
than the genius of those about her, but it was none
the less a talent because it treated of other matter
than that of theology and superstitious belief.
There is real literary merit in the sprightly pages
of her journal. "VnAxA
Her journal has also a certain historical value. . ,
It does not mention any important events or noted •^ yr^^-t^-^*-'
people of that day, but it presents a vivacious "
picture of colonial customs and gives an entertain-
ing description of the places through which Madam
Knight passed in her travels.
Madam's diary does not tell us just why she
made her journey. We only know that she went
to arrange about some New York property of hers
which, it is supposed, had been left her by a New
York relative. Perhaps too, with her enterprising,
energetic nature, she may have had a wish to break
through her narrow boundaries, to meet with
adventures, to see the world, even though in so
doing she must climb ^^ steep and rocky" hills,
cross " tottering bridges," ford " hazardous " rivers,
and encounter bears, wolves, and savages.
But whatever were her reasons for going, she
certainly must have created quite a stir about her
quiet New England home on that October after-
noon, when, dressed in her brilliant travelling- /
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88 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
costume of scarlet and green, mounted on her
horse, and accompanied hy her kinsman Captain
Robert Luist, her first guide, she started on her
journey and rode away, waving a farewell to her
friends and neighbors who had gathered in her
garden to wish her " Godspeed."
With this moment of departure madam's journal
begins. Captain Luist, she tells us, accompanied
her as far as the Rev. Mr. Belcher's house at
Dedham, where she went in hopes of meeting the
western post. She waited there until evening, but
the post did not come. Thereupon madam, noth-
ing daunted, determined to ride on to " Billingses,"
where she was told the post would be sure to lodge.
It was then that she made her appearance at the
Dedham tavern and found a guide in honest John,
who so gallantly left his pewter mug to escort her
to the house of Mistress Debby Billings. And the
reception which Madam Sarah had from that scary
young woman is historic.
Madam had some other uncomfortable times
at her various lodging-places in the course of her
travels and she writes of her tavern experiences in
j^__^her characteristically amusing and abusive fashion.
*-■ — She often found the food which was put before her
' quite unpalatable. At one " ordinary," as a tavern
was called in those early days, " a woman brought in
; ^ a twisted thing like a cable but something wliiter,"
madam records, "and laying it on the board
tugged for life to bring it into a capacity to spread,
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 89
which having with great pains accomplished, she f / ^
served a dish of pork and cabbage, I suppose the y^
remains of dinner. The sauce was of a deep purple '
which I tho't was boiled in her dye kettle; the
bread was Indian and everything on the table
service agreeable to those. I being hungry, got a
little down, but my stomach was soon cloy'd."
Upon another occasion madam was even more
unfortunate in her fare and could not get even " a
little down."
" We baited our horses," she writes, " and would
have eaten a morsel ourselves but the pumkin and
Indian bread had such an aspect, and the bare-
legged punch so awkward or rather awful a
sound that we left both and proceeded forward."
Indeed, her epicurean taste was sorely tried by
these "ordinary" tables and her love of comfort r*^ ■
was equally annoyed by the " wretched " beds ^ "^ ^^ *
upon which she was forced to sleep. She found
the " ordinary " beds distressingly high and as hard
as they were high; the coverlets were often
"scanty" and, concerning the linen, she remarks
with delicate insinuation of its dinginess that it
was "sad colored."
Here is a pathetic glimpse of Madam Sarah [
passing the night at a wayside inn where the food ^ i^d f""*"*^ ^
was so poor that she could not eat and the bed so <^ y-^ ^ '
bad that she could not sleep and where her room
was shared, as was the custom of the time, by the
guides who travelled with her : " Riding till about
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90 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
nine," she says, *' we arrived and took up our lodg-
ings at an ordinary which a French family kept.
Here, being very hungry, I desired a fricassee,
which the Frenchman, undertaking, managed so
contrary to my notion of cookery that I hastened
to bed supperless ; arriving at my apartment I
found it to be furnished, amongst other rubbish,
with a high bed, a low one, a long table, a bench,
and a bottomless chair. Little Miss went to
scratch up my kennell which rustled as if she 'd
been in the bam amongst the husks and suppose
such was the contents of the tickin'. Nevertheless,
being exceedingly weary, down I laid my poor
carkes (never more tired) and found my covering
as scanty as my bed was hard. Anon I heard
another rustling noise in ye room, called to know
the matter. Little Miss said she was making a
bed for the men; who, when they were in bed
complained their leggs lay out of it by reason of its
shortness. My poor bones complained bitterly, not
being used to such lodgings and so did the man
who was with us ; and poor I made but one grone
which was from the time I went to bed to the time
, I riss, which was about three in the morning, set-
I ting up by the fire till light."
/•^"Sometimes when bed and board were both satis-
' factory, madam had yet another cause for annoy-
ance. The people who frequented these ordinaries,
where she was obliged to lodge, were not always
of the nicest sort. There was among them a good
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 91
deal of drinking and brawling and some of their
conversations, to quote Madam Sarah's own expres-
sion, "are not proper to be related by a female
pen." When madam found their talk and behavior
unbearable she would quietly " slip out and enter
her mind in her journal," by way of consolation. ^
Occasionally the noise of these tavern roisterers
kept her awake after she had retired for the night. '
One evening in particular she could get no sleep
because of the clamor of some of the town topers ^
in the next room. The " town topers," it seems,
were discussing the meaning of the name of their ^
country (Narragansett), and one of their number ^
grew especially vehement and upheld his side of
the argument *' with a thousand imprecations not
worth notice, which he uttered with such a roreing
voice and thundering blows with the fist of wicked-
ness on the table that it pierced my head. I heart-
ily fretted," continues poor madam, " and wished
'em tongue tyed; but with little success. They
kept calling for t'other Gill, which, while they
were swallowing, was some intermission, but pres-
ently like oyle to fire, increased the flame. I set
my candel on a chest by the bedside and setting
up, fell to my old way of composing my resent-
ments in the following manner :
'* * I aak thy aid, O Potent Rum I
To charm these wrangling topers dnm
Thou hast their Giddy Braines possest
The man confounded with the Beast -^
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92 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
And I, poor I, can get no rest
Intoxicate them with thjr famei :
O Btill their tongues till morning comes I '
( ^'«
V^d^
^rr^
** And I know not but my wishes took effect," she
adds exultantly, " for the dispute soon ended with
fi'other dram ; and so good-night ! "
Surely the entertainment which Madam Knight
had at the taverns along her route was not always
of the most enjoyable sort. Yet such as it was, it
was better than none, as madam herself realized
'V t i up<>^ those occasions when hospitality was denied
her. For there were a few places where madam
(^u^^ and her guides were not even admitted and madam
. could do nothing but depart in indignation and,
at the first opportunity, " compose her resentment "
I ?. on paper. She is quite eloquent in her " resent-
Jj^ ^ ments " and we cannot but admire her mastery of
\ v^ uncomplimentary expression. Once it was a " surly
old she-creature not worthy the name of woman
who would hardly let us go into her door, though
the weather was so stormy none but she would
have turned out a Dogg." And, at another time,
the house of a Mr. Davol, or Devil, as she point-
edly spelled it, was the " habitation of cruelty."
I questioned," remarks madam, with light irony,
" whether we ought to go to the Devil to be helpt
out of afiBiction. However, like the rest of De-
- » I luded Souls that past to ye Infernal denn, we
i ^{y t ^i made all possible speed to this Devil's Habitation;
^ A*' where, alighting, in full assurance of good accom-
\:
r:
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 98
modation, we were going in. But meeting his two
daughters, as I supposed twins, they so nearly ^
resembled each other, both in features and habit )
and look't as old as the Divel himself and quite
as ugly, we desired entertainment, but could hardly
get a word out of 'um, till with our importunity, *
telling them our necessity, etc., they call'd the
old Sophister who was as sparing of his words as
his daughters had bin and no or none was the reply
he made to our demands. He differed only in this
from the old fellow in t' other country ; he let us I
depart." "^^
However, madam's troubles on her journey were
not confined to taverns and surly tavern keepers.
The road itself caused her much anxiety and
terror. Often, while she was riding along in the
darkness, she fancied " each lifeless Trunk with its * ^jj^
shattered Limbs " was " an armed Engine " and vA^
every little stump a " Ravenous devourer." And
when she knew that there was a river ahead which r
must be crossed "no thoughts but those of the
dang'rous River could entertain her imagination."
Sometimes she saw herself " drowning, otherwhiles \
drowned, and at the best like a holy sister just
come out of a Spiritual Bath in dripping Garments."
She had as little confidence in a canoe as some
anxious fathers and mothers have in these modem
days and she has left a vivid description of her first
trip in that " ticklish Indian vehicle."
" The canoe," she says, " was very small and
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94 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
shallow so that, when we were in, she seemed
re'dy to take in water which greatly terrified me
f^ and caused me to be very circumspect, sitting with
{\ ]^/iJ^ my hands fast on each side, my eyes steady, not
^^ daring so much as to lodge my tongue a hair's
breadth more on one side of my mouth than t'other,
nor so much as think on Lett's wife, for a wry
thought would have oversett our wherey."
Amid such fears as these of capsizing canoes,
hazardous rivers, armed enemies, and ravenous
devourers, madam retained her dauntless, venture-
some spirit. What her guides dared, she dared
also and although she sometimes hesitated and
grew " fearful," she always managed to *' rally her
courage " and go bravely on.
She used to find it a great comfort in her
perilous travels to indulge her imagination. She
" ^v' liked to fancy that the moonlight had transformed
V)' \ " *^® forest trees into a " sumptuous city filled with
•^. f* l' ^ famous Buildings, churches with their spiring
tv «. V - , ^ \ steeples. Balconies and Galleries " and she invested
-' f N- ^^^^ visionary city with "grandeurs " of which she
^ ^-^ : had heard and of which she had read in the stories
of foreign lands. Often, when the time was favor-
able to poetic thought, she would "drop into
poetry" and compose verses upon the moon, or
poverty or any subject that happened to inspire
herj And while she was entertaining herself in
this agreeable fashion, she forgot her "weariness
and toils " and was only roused from her " pleasing
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 96
-7
imaginations " by the post sounding his horn.
That sound of the post's horn, madam declared,
was the sweetest music in her ears, for it meant
that they had arrived at their night's lodging and
that her journey for that day was ended. - — \
It must have been a great relief to Madam / j
Knight when she came to the large towns of New , ' '
Haven and New York and found friends and relar ^^ ^ "^ , *
tives who treated her to such comfort and hospital- # ^ » '
ity as she had not enjoyed at the taverns along the ^ /
way. She visited in each of these towns several
weeks, observing and commenting upon the man-
ners and customs of the people and delighting to
compare all things in both places with "ours in
Boston." At that time Boston was the big city
— it had a population of ten thousand, while New
York was only half as large.
The people of New Haven and of the Connecticut r^ Ci^-yv^'^
Colony in general, madam decides, are too inde- •
pendent in some ways and too rigid in others. She ^
is shocked at their leniency in regard to divorce.
" These uncomely Standaways," she says, " are too
much in vogue among the English in this indulgent
colony, as their records plentifully prove and that
on very trivial matters." She thinks that they are
also too familiar with their slaves and complains
that " into the dish goes the black hoof as freely as
the white hand." It might be stated, parentheti-
cally, that table manners cannot have been very
elegant in Madam Knight's day. But she wonders
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96 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
that they should be so severe as regards a harmless
kiss and innocent merriment among young people.
And she tells of an amusing custom in practise at
their weddings, where the bridegroom runs away,
is pursued by the bridesmen, and dragged back "to
duty." Her opinion is that the people of New
Haven are a rather awkward, countrified set. She
judges them according to her critical BostoM
standard and thinks they show the lack of educa-
tion and conversation. . " Their want of improve-
ments," she says, "renders them almost ridiculous,"
and to illustrate the truth of her statement she
gives a vivid description of a scene in a New Haven
merchant's house, which served as his " shop."
"^ ^ " In comes a tall country fellow," she records,
" with his Alf ogeos full of Tobacco. He advanced
to the middle of the room, makes an awkward nodd
,, and ^spitting a large deal of Aromatic Tincture, he
y gave a scrape with lus shovel-like shoe, leaving a
\y small shovel-full of dirt on the floor, made a full
^ ^ V stop, hugging his own pretty body with his hands
.>*^ . "^ under his arms, stood staring round him like a catt
X^ let out of a basket. At last, like the creature Balaam
rode on, he opened lus mouth and said ' Have you
any ribinnes for hat bands to sell, I pray ?** The
questions and answers about the pay being past,
the ribin is bro't and opened. Bumpkin simpers,
cryes, ' It 's confounded gay, I vow,' and beckons to
the door. In comes Joan Tawdry, dropping about
fifty curtsies, and stands by him. He shows her
^u
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 97
my /
ichj
'>■}
the ribin. ' Law you,' says she, * it 's right gent ;
do you take it, it 's dreadful pretty.' Then she
enquires, 'Have you any hood silk, I pray?'
Which, being brought and bought, ' Have you any
thread silk to sew it with?' says she. Which
being accommodated with, they departed." ""-'^
In New York madam found the people more f
to her liking. " They are ' sociable ' and * court-
eous,' " she says. And she remarks that " they are
not so strick in keeping the Sabbath as in Boston " . y,
and that "they treat with good liquor literally." # #//(j^^^
Neither of these facts at all disturbed Madam J^
Sarah; the merry dame from Boston town had
little of the puritanical about her. She speaks with
enthusiasm of the fine sleighing in the little Dutch ^
capital and "the houses of entertainment at a
place called the Bowery." The "Bowery" of those
days was highly respectable and well calculated to '
please a person of Madam Sarah's aristocratic tastes.
Madam herself went sleighing with her New York
friends, passed fifty or sixty swift-driving " slays "
on the way, and stopped at a farmhouse where
they met with "handsome entertainment." On
the whole, Madame Knight enjoyed her fortnight's
stay in New York immensely and left the " pleasant i
city," as she herself declared, "with no little \
regret." w-n ^
Difficult aj9 madam's journey to New York had
been, her journey home was even more so. For it i^v^A,'V^^ ^ f
was midwinter when she came to return and the (/ . /" , ^
f
f f^--
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98 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
^ cold, the storms of wind and snow, and the ice on
pJk the rivers added to her fears and discomforts. She
was a joyful and much relieved woman when, on
the third of March, after an absence of five months,
she reached home in safety and found her " tender"
mother and her "dear and only child, with open
arms, ready to receive her " and her friends " flock-
ing in " to welcome her. We can imagine with what
interest and sympathy all gathered round to hear
the tale of her travels, how they praised her for
her perseverance and courage, and how even
Cotton Mather smiled over the amusing parts of
) her narrative.
-i:::^"^ut Madam Knight's story of her journey can-
not have been any more entertaining to her relatives
and friends than it is to us who read it looking
. back across two hundred years of change and
V 4 progress. It is the quaintness and remoteness of
y Madam Knight and her journal that especially
/. interest us. Our world is so diflferent from hers.
0^ y The Shore Line Express now carries us in a few
A^^*^ >. hours over the same road upon which she spent
U ^\\^* so many weary days and nights. Pleasant pasture
lands have taken the place of the great forests
which used to terrify her. Big cities have grown
out of the little one-tavern towns where she often
went supperless to bed. Indeed, the very " grand-
eurs," which she imagined in the woods on those
moonlight nights have come to pass and the
^^ famous buildings," the ^^ churches with spiring
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 99
steeples," the " Balconies," and " Galleries " of her
dream are now more real than the far-away, priimi- .
tive worid of her journal. -^
Fortunately, our knowledge of Madam Knight
does not end with her journal of her travels. In
her later days she continued to be remarkable.
We realize the extent of her energy and literary
ability when we learn that, soon after her return
from her trip to New York, she opened a school in
her handsome house on Moon street. She be-
came quite celebrated in her new capacity ; in those
days a schoolmistress was almost as great a rarity
as a traveller in petticoats. Among her pupils
she numbered no less a personage than Benjamin
Franklin. Samuel Mather was another of her
scholars. And it was a Mather of a later generation,
Mrs. Hannabell Crocker, who called Madam Knight /
an "original genius" and said her ideas of that ^^
talented lady were formed from having heard Dr. L^f r
Franklin and Dr. Mather converse about their old
schoolmistress. One would like to see that " old
schoolmistress " as she appeared to the two learned
doctors, when they were small boys blotting their
copy books, mispronouncing the big words in their
primers, and trembling at the awful birch that
hung behind madam's stiff-backed chair. She
scolded them, we may be sure, and used for their
benefit some of her wonderful abusive language.
But we know she must have smiled as well and ^^^ \
told them funny stories ; even in the school-room >
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100 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Madam Knight cannot have missed the humor-
ous.
Madam Knight did not end her days as a school-
mistress nor as a resident of Boston town. When
her daughter married and went to live in New
London, madam followed her there and spent the
rest of her life either in New London or at Norwich.
She owned several farms in New London, but her
dwelling-house and the church which she attended
were at Norwich. It is recorded that she gave a
silver communion cup to the Norwich church and
the town, in gratitude for her gift, voted her per-
mission ^^to sit in the pew where she used to
sit."
In both Norwich and New London madam seems
/^ to have been highly respected for her many excel-
lent qualities, but we find one black mark agaiDst
her name which reminds us of her father's " lewd
and unseemly behavior." She is accused by those
scrupulous Puritan records of "selling strong
drinks to the Indians."
At the Livingston farm in New London on the
Norwich road madam is reported to have kept
" entertainment for travellers " and it was at this
farm that she died. So the last character in which
she appeared was that of an inn-keeper. No doubt
hers was a model ordinary, free from clamorous
town topers, mountainous beds with sad-colored
pillows, fricassees that could not be swallowed,
pumpkin and Indian mixed bread of dreadful aspect.
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MADAM SARAH KNIGHT. 101
bare-legged punch of awful sound, and the host of 1
other tavern ills from which she herself had
suflfered. And we may well believe that many a
weary, hungry traveller had cause to bless the
pleasant farm on the Norwich road and the tidy,
smiling, bustling genius of the place, Madam Sarah
Knight.
If I- .. ■ ^ ^
K'l
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ELIZA LUCAS, OF CHARLESTON,
AFTEBWAJlDS WIFE OP CHIEF-JUSTICE CHARLES
PINCKNEY.
Bom on tho iiUnd of AnUgiut in 1728.
Died at PhiUdelpbla, May 24, 1708.
** A woman of character and capacity who, in a priyate sta^
tion, by her enterpriBe and perseverance, conferred a great
benefit upon her adopted home." — Harriott Horry RaveneL
The tall clock in the library comer struck
eleven. Colonel Pinckney looked up from his
book to listen, while Mrs. Pinckney, his wife, and
her niece. Miss Bartlett, stopped in their needle-
work as if waiting for something to happen. But
nothing did happen and Miss Bartlett made a
grimace at the clock's face as she remarked in a
tone of mingled regret and protest:
^^ I fear our dear Miss Lucas must have decided
not to honor us this morning. Surely she would
have been here by now, if she were coming, for
she never allows herself the luxury of being late."
"Our dear Miss Lucas," echoed the colonel
from the depths of his book, " has doubtless found
108
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104 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
her indigo, ginger, and cotton too engrossing to
resign them for the pleasure of our company."
" Indigo, ginger, and cotton, indeed," exclaimed
Miss Bartlett, impatiently, " I vow, Miss Lucas
loves the vegetable world too dearly if she must
neglect her friends for it. Her devotion to agricul-
ture amounts to a passion. To me such a taste
seems almost unfeminine." And Miss Bartlett
returned to her embroidery with a virtuous air, as
if anxious to prove her own unassailable fem-
ininity.
"Not unfeminine," protested her aunt, who
never could bear to hear a word of criticism passed
upon her young friend. " I consider Eliza's gar-
dening a very innocent and useful amusement,
and other girls who trifle away their time in vain
pursuits would do well " —
Here Mrs. Pinckney's remarks, which to her
niece's apprehensive ears bore promise of a ser-
mon, were interrupted by the sound of a light,
firm footstep ringing along the flagstone hall.
"'Tis Eliza!" they all exclaimed together, and
the next moment a fair-haired, blue-eyed English
girl was standing in the doorway. Her calash, the
fashionable large bonnet of the day, had fallen
back and showed all her bright, sunny locks, while
\ her. long, flowing cloak, parting, disclosed her
\ gown of blue taflfety and her shining white arms
\ and neck. Her eyes danced with pleasure as she
looked from one to another of her three friends.
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ELIZA LUCAS. 105
"I am a little late," she said apologetically,
courtesying to the colonel and his wife, and affec-
tionately returning Miss Bartlett's embrace.
" Yes, we feared you were not coming at all,
and stayed away because you loved your garden
better than your friends," declared Miss Bartlett,
with a reproving look.
" You have been roundly scolded, my dear," re-
marked Mrs. Pinckney, " and I have been endeav-
oring to defend you and your garden to the colonel
and my niece, though I must confess to have been
a little jealous myself of your indigo, ginger, and
cotton."
The colonel led his young guest to a chair and
helped her to remove her cloak.
" How is the little visionary ? " he inquired with
a quiet, merry smile. " Has she come to town to
partake of some of the amusements suitable to her
time of life?"
*^ I see you have all conspired to tease me about
what you are pleased to call my * whims,' " re-
torted Miss Eliza, with a toss of her pretty head ;
"but I warn you if you do not show greater re-
spect for my schemes I will not tell you my latest."
" Oh, pray tell us," they all exclaimed. " We
will promise to be very kind and considerate,"
added Mrs. Pinckney.
Eliza shook her head and smoothed her bonnet
strings meditatively. " No, Mrs. Pinckney," she
said, "not even you, I fear, can be kind and
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106 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
considerate to this last one. But," and she looked
up with a bright smile, '^ I am not the one to spoil
a joke, even at my own cost. You will all laugh
when I tell you I am so busy providing for pos-
terity I hardly allow myself time to eat and
sleep."
" Or to visit your friends," put in the colonel
with a merry twinkle.
" Or to visit my friends," assented Eliza, gayly.
*^ But hear my scheme : I am making a large plan-
tation of oaks, with a view to the future, when oaks
will be more valuable than they are now."
" Which will be when we come to build fleets, I
presume," said the colonel, and the twinkle still
lingered in his eyes.
" Yes, when we come to build fleets," she affirmed
stoutly. " Ah ! I knew you would laugh at me.
Colonel Pinckney. But I do not care. My whims
and projects will turn out well by and by. You
shall see. Out of many surely one may hit."
Colonel Pinckney smiled approvingly on the
young enthusiast.
"You have a fertile brain for scheming, little
visionary," he remarked, and Eliza felt flattered
without quite understanding why.
" I have brought back the books you lent me,
Colonel Pinckney," she said, diving into her cloak's
ample pockets and bringing out three good-sized
volumes, — a Virgil, Richardson's " Pamela," and
an ancient-looking law book. " I return them with
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ELIZA LUCAS. 107
thanks," she continued. ^^ I was much entertained
by them/' and crossing over to his table she laid
them down beside him.
" And did you find Virgil as good company as I
promised you ? " he inquired, looking with interest
into her animated face.
" Better," was the decided answer. " I have got
no further than the first volume, but so far I am
agreeably disappointed. I imagined I should im-
mediately enter upon battles, storms, and tempests
that would put me in a maze, but," and her eyes
began to dance, ^^ I found myself instructed in
agriculture. Virgil is quite of my mind. He
loves the country. His pastorals are beautiful, I
think."
^^ Still harping on agriculture," exclaimed Miss
Bartlett, with a despairing sigh.
"Yes, and so would you," laughed Eliza, sitting
down beside her friend, "if you had travelled
through the meadows as I have this morning, and
smelled the scent of the young myrtle and seen
the violets and jasmines in bloom."
" Oh, I do love that phase of * agriculture,' "
protested Miss Bartlett. " 'T is only your passion
for planting I cannot comprehend. Tell me, has
the mocking-bird begAn his songs yet?"
" Yes," exclaimed Eliza, with a little ripple of
delight, " and such sweet harmonies ! He would
win one into a love of nature if naught else
could."
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108 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Colonel Finckney turned about in his chair and
surveyed Eliza with an expression of amused
wonder.
"I wish you would give me your recipe for
making time," he said. " A young woman who
reads Virgil's pastorals, Richardson's latest senti-
mental novel, and Dr. Wood on law, who starts a
large plantation of oaks, who runs numerous other
plantations of indigo, ginger, cotton, figs, etc., and
has still time enough left to listen to the mocking-
bird, — such a young woman must surely have
some magical influence over old Cronos. How do
you ever manage it, little visionary ? "
Eliza laughed merrily.
" By early rising," she answered. " You know
I am up every morning at five. An old gentle-
woman in our neighborhood is often quarrelling
with me for being up so early. She is in great
fear lest it should spoil my chances for marriage.
For she says it will make me old before I am
young."
" I imagine that sort of apprehension does not
frighten you," Mrs. Pinckney remarked smilingly.
" No, indeed," declared Eliza, with a determined
shake of the head. " I told her if I should look
older for rising early, I really would be older,
for the longer we are awake the longer we are
aUve."
" That is unmistakably good logic," agreed Mrs.
Pinckney, " but you know the Pinckney motto for
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ELIZA LUCAS. 109
you has alwajB been ' Work less and play more.'
We are of the old gentlewoman's opinion ; we want
you to be young before you are old."
'* And yet 't was you yourself, Mrs. Pinckney,
and your niece here who put me to the difficult
task of working on lappets."
" Oh, how have you come on with yours ? " in-
quired Miss Bartlett, with the proud consciousness
that her own lappets were lying beautifully finished
in her chest of drawers upstairs.
Eliza sighed. " I find them but slow work," she
said. " And you know I can never go to them
with a quite easy conscience. My father has such
an aversion to my employing my time in needle-
work."
" I confess I rather share in your father's aver-
sion to the needle. Miss Eliza," declared the colonel,
" and never see ladies talking over their work with-
out suspecting they are hatching mischief."
" Oh, fie, uncle," exclaimed Miss Bartlett. " For
shame ! How can you be so ungallant ? Come,
dear Miss Lucas, let us leave him to aunt's regen-
erating influence, and you shall go with me and
see my lappets."
And accordingly the girls made their courtesies
and withdrew.
Upstairs, in Miss Bartlett's little blue and white
bedroom, the lappets were displayed to advantage,
and duly admired. Then the two friends sat to-
gether upon the broad window seat and entered
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110 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
into one of those confidential chats peculiar to
young girls.
Presently Eliza drew a folded piece of paper
from her gown, and waved it before her friend just
out of arms' reach.
"What is it, a love letter?" exclaimed Miss
Bartlett, her curiosity immediately aroused.
Eliza laughed, shook her head, but said nothing
and continued to flourish the paper tantalizingly
in the air. Finally, however, after much coax-
ing from Miss Bartlett, she said, a little shame-
facedly :
" This morning, while I was lacing my stays,
the mocking-bird inspired me with the spirit of
rhyming."
" Then 't is a bit of poetry you have there ? "
exclaimed Miss Bartlett, catching Eliza's arm.
" Give it me," she commanded. " You promised
me your next verse."
Eliza gave it up reluctantly.
" If you let any mortal besides yourself see it"
— she began, pausing for lack of a threat terrible
enough.
But Miss Bartlett was resolving secretly to show
it to her aunt and uncle at the first opportunity.
She read it first to herself, and then aloud in an
impressive voice :
" Sing on I thou charming mimic of the feathered kind,
And let the rational a lesson learn from thee
To mimic (not defects) bat harmony."
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ELIZA LUCAS. Ill
"What a clever girl you are," she exclaimed
admiringly, as she finished it, ** to turn so easily
from planting to poetry I " Then a sudden thought
struck her and she surveyed Eliza critically.
" I believe you are in love," she said. " People
in love are always writing verses."
" Yes," returned Eliza, with laughing eyes, " I
am in love — with the mocking-bird." Then she
continued more seriously. "My dear, you must
abandon all thoughts of my falling in love and
getting married. I just writ papa this morning
that a single life is my only choice."
" And has he been urging matrimony upon you,"
exclaimed Miss Bartlett, looking interested.
" Yes," replied Eliza, with something between a
sigh and a laugh. *' A few days ago he writ to
inform me that two gentlemen were each desirous
of becoming ray husband, a Mr. W. whom I scarcely
know, and a Mr. L. whom I scarcely like."
" And what answer did you send to their pro-
posals ? " asked Miss Bartlett, who dearly loved
anything romantic.
" I sent them my compliments and thanks for
their favorable sentiments of me, but begged leave
to decline their ofEers."
There was a moment's pause, and then Miss
Bartlett remarked, with a side glance at her friend :
" I think I have guessed who Mr. L. is. Why
will you not have him ? He is an agreeable gen-
tleman, and rich too, they say."
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112 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Eliza flang up her head.
" All the riches of Chili and Pern put together,
if he had them, could not purchase a sufficient
esteem for him to make him my husband," she
affirmed with spirit.
Miss Bartlett sighed.
" I fear you will die an old maid, my dear," she
remarked. ** I doubt if you will ever get a man
to answer your plan."
^^ And die an old maid I certainly shall, unless I
find the right man," protested Eliza, quite un-
daunted. ^^ Matrimony is a ticklish affair and
requires the nicest consideration," she added more
gayly; "for if you happen to judge wrong and
are unequally matched there is an end of all hu-
man felicity, and as Dr. Watts says,
<** As well may heavenly concord spring
From two old lutes without a string.'"
Thus the time passed pleasantly in talk of
matrimony, beaux, and other engaging matter
until dinner was announced, and the girls went
down to rejoin the colonel and Mrs. Pinckney in
the large dining-room below.
Eliza always enjoyed her visits to the Pinckney
mansion. She felt more at home with the colonel
and his wife than with any of her other Charleston
friends, and although they were as much as twenty-
years her seniors, she found their sensible con-
versation more to her taste than the " flashy non-
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ELIZA LUCAS. 113
sense," as she called it, of many of her younger
acquaintances.
Mrs. Pinckney chaperoned her, advised her, and
made much of her; the colonel lent her books,
discussed literature and planting with her, and
teased her about her " whims ; " while both of
them grew very fond of their bright young friend,
and were continually urging her to come and stay
with them. And Eliza, for all her serious-minded-
ness, was enough of a girl to enjoy the gayeties
their city home offered and to find the balls, re-
ceptions, and dinner parties to which they took
her a pleasant change from her quiet, retired life
in the country.
Yet her country life had been of her own choos-
ing. In one of her many letters she writes :
"My papa and mamma's great indulgence to
me leaves it to me to chuse our place of residence,
either in town or country, but I think it more
prudent as well as more agreeable to my mamma
and self to be in the country during my father's
absence."
Eliza was a girl of sixteen when she came to
" chuse " her " place of residence " in South Caro-
lina. Up to that time her home had been in the
West Indian island of Antigua, where her father,
Lieut.-Col. George Lucas, an oflScer in the Eng-
lish army, was stationed. Most of her child-
hood, however, was not passed in Antigua, but
ill England, for she was sent there with her little
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114 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
brothers, George and Tom, to be educated, and
she grew up in the great city of London under
the care of a good English woman named Mrs.
Boddicott.
Meanwhile, in Antigua, her poor mamma had
been languishing in the tropical heat of her new
land and longing for the green valleys and breezy
hilltops of Old England. She grew more and
more sickly, and soon after Eliza's return to
Antigua Governor Lucas went with his family in
search of a climate which would suit his wife's
delicate health. They liked, the pretty, balmy
land of Carolina so well that they settled there,
and Colonel Lucas started extensive plantations
in St. Andi^ew's parish, near the Ashley river,
about seventeen miles from Charleston. But, at
the renewal of England's war with Spain, he was
obliged to hurry back, and Eliza was left with the
care of a delicate mother and a little sister, and
the management of a house and three plantations.
It was a responsible position for a girl of sixteen.
Eliza, however, was a capable, practical, level-
headed young woman, and she filled her place
well.
She entered upon her agricultural duties with
energy and spirit. Her plan was to see what
crops could be raised on the highlands of South
Carolina to furnish a staple for exportation. She
tried plots of indigo, ginger, cotton, lucerne, and
cassada.
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ELIZA LUCAS. 116
With her indigo she was especially successful,
and after many disappointments she mastered the
secret of its preparation. Her experiments in
that crop proved a source of wealth to the colony,
the annual value of its expoiiation, just before the
Revolution, amounting to over a million pounds.
And her biographer quite justly implies that this
modest, unassuming colonial daughter of almost
two hundred years back did as much for our
country as any " New Woman " has done since.
From the time of her coming to Carolina, Eliza's
letters tell the story of her life. There are letters
to her friends in Charleston only seventeen miles
away, letters to Mrs. Boddicott in London and to
her Boston cousin, and, occasionally, letters to
some old school friend, letters addressed in an
elder-sisterly vein to her young brothers in Eng-
land, and letters filled with business matter, scraps
of news, and affectionate messages to her father,
her "best friend," as she calls him, — all these
written in the stilted phraseology of the day, but
showing a charming, unaffected personality and a
character earnest, persevering, and self-reliant.
As we read them, we are impressed with the
fulness and usefulness of this young girl's life.
"I have a little library, well-furnished," she
writes, "(for my papa has left me most of his
books), in which I spend part of my time. My
music and the garden, which I am very fond of,
take up the rest that is not employed in business
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116 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
of which my father has left me a pretty good share,
and indeed 't was unavoidable, as my mamma's bad
state of health prevents her going thro' any fatigue.
I have the business of three plantations to transact
which requires much writing and more business
and fatigue of other sorts than you can imagine,
but lest you should imagine it too burthensome
to a girl at my early time of life, give me leave
to assure you I think myself happy that I can be
useful to so good a father."
And again, speaking of her engagements, she
writes, " I have particular matters for particular
days. Mondays my musick master is here. Tues-
day my friend Mrs. Chardon (about three miles
distant) and I are constantly engaged to each
other. Thursday, the whole day, except what the
necessary affairs of the family take up, is spent in
writing letters on the business of the plantations
or on letters to my friends. Every other Friday,
if no company, we go a-visiting. So that I go
abroad once a week and no oftener."
Every day she gave instruction to her small
sister "Polly" and taught a "parcel of little
Negroes " how to read. There were always calls
to be made upon the poor and sick who lived near.
And she even established herself as a notary to
meet the needs of some unfoi*tunate neighbors
who " never think of making a will till they come
upon a sick bed and find it too expensive to send to
town for a lawyer." So Miss Lucas, who was
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ELIZA LUCAS. 117
already housekeeper, teacher, nurse, and planter,
became a lawyer too, and borrowing some ponder-
ous volumes from her friend, Mr. Pinckney, she
straightway " engaged herself with the rudiments
of the law." Imagine poor little " Betsey," as she
was sometimes named, puckering up her fair
forehead and puzzling her quick wits over the
difficult places, " cramp phrases," she called them,
and finally mastering them, so that she was at last
able to "convey by will, estates, real and personal,
and never forget in its proper place, him and his
heirs forever." But even the obliging Miss Lucas
must "draw the line" somewhere and when "a
widow with a pretty little fortune " teased her
" intolerable " to draw her a marriage settlement,
Eliza declared it was quite "out of her depth" and
" absolutely refused it."
' In the midst of this busy life, Eliza found time
to cultivate her artistic tastes. She tells us that
she devoted certain hours every day to the study
of music, and we find her writing to ask her
father's permission to send to England for " Can-
tatas, Welden's Anthems, and Knolly's Rules for
Tuning." Her fondness for literature quite scan-
dalized one old gentlewoman in the neighborhood,
who took such a dislike to her books that " she
had like to have thrown my Plutarch's Lives into
the fire. She is sadly afraid," writes the amused
young lady, " that I will read myself mad."
Fortunately for Eliza, however, all her friends
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118 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
were not so hostile to her literary pursuits as this
elderly gentlewoman. Colonel Pinckney's advice
and encouragement to hep in her reading helped
her greatly. " With graceful ease and good
nature peculiar to himself," she writes of him,
" he was always ready to instruct the ignorant."
Here she was modestly classing herself with the
ignorant, but Colonel Pinckney would never have
placed her in such a category. He had the highest
respect for her intelligence and probably enjoyed
her naive criticisms, her keen appreciations, and
youthful enthusiasms quite as much as she did his
" graceful " and " good-natured " instructions.
Eliza was musical and literary and she was also,
as we have already seen, a genuine lover of nature.
A bird's nest interested her more than a party, and
she lamented the felling of a tree like ^^ the loss of
an old friend." All through her letters we are
catching glimpses of green fields, pleasant groves
of oak and laurel, and meadows fragrant with the
young myrtle, the yellow jasmine, and the deep
bine violets of Carolina, while the sweet melodies
of her ** darling," the mocking-bird, are continually
echoing through the pages.
And there is another sort of music, very different
from the mocking-bird's, which is heard now and
then in her letters. It is the humming and scrap-
ing of the fiddles floating down to us through the
vista of almost two hundred years ago in the
solemn measures of the minuet, the gay jigging
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DOWN THK DARK A.^HLK^ RI\KK IN ACANoh H(MJA>UJ-U
i ROM A (.KIA'T- i\ PRI>^."
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ELIZA LUCAS. 119
strains of the reel and the merry country dances.
For this industrious young daughter of colonial
days could be frivolous when occasion demanded
and trip a dance as charmingly as any city belle.
Society in Charleston and the pleasant ^* country
seats " near her home was yery gay. Miss Lucas
was quite overwhelmed with invitations. Not only
the Pinckneys but many other friends and ac-
quaintances urged her to accept their hospitality
and be ^* young " along with them and pressed her
to ^^ relax/' as she expressed it, '^ oftener than she
found it in her power to do so." England's war
with Spain brought English soldiers and sailors to
the shores of Carolina, and she writes to her papa
about the entertainment of the Jamaica fleet with,
** I am told, fifty officers." And at the governor's
ball to these officers, on the king's birth-night, she
danced with " your old friend Captain Brodrick,"
she writes, and was quite besieged by a Mr. Small,
" a very talkative man," she declares, " who said
many obliging things of you, for which I thought
myself obliged to him and therefore punished my-
self to hear a great deal of flashy nonsense from
him for an hour together."
When Miss Lucas went to a party she travelled
in a postK^haise which her mamma had imported
from England, and her escort rode beside her on a
*^ small, spirited horse of the Chickasaw breed."
Or, if she went by water, she was carried down
the dark Ashley river in a canoe hollowed from a
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120 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
great cypress, and manned by six or eight negroes
all singing in time with the silent swing of their
paddles. We can imagine Miss Lucas upon such
occasions, admiring the brightness of the stars,
talking gayly in anticipation of the coming dance,
singing little snatches of song, or quietly enjoying
the beauty of the night.
There was always good cheer awaiting the
guests at the manorial houses along the Ashley
river. Eliza tells us of the venison, wild fowl,
and fish, the turkey and beef, the peaches, melons,
and oranges in which the country abounded. After
the feast the men lingered over their wine and the
ladies gossiped^ in the drawing-room until the
fiddles began to play. Then the gentlemen left
their cups and with low bows and elaborate com-
pliments invited their partners to the dance, and
soon the house was ringing with merry measures
of music and the beat of many feet. And while
the gentlemen, in powdered hair, long-waistcoats,
and buckled shoes, and the ladies, in towering head
dresses, flaring skirts of brocade, lute-string, and
taffety, and amazingly high-heeled slippers, were
dancing in the hall, the shining, smiling negroes
all beribboned for the ball were footing it gayly in
the servants' quarters and upon the lawn and
broad piazzas.
Such were the good social times in which Eliza
Lucas took part. But although she enjoyed them
and entered into them with spirit she did not
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ELIZA LUCAS. 121
dwell much upon them. Her thoughts did not
run to any great extent upon feasting, halls, and
beaux. She was engaged with more serious mat-
ters, and the gentlemen to whom she gave her
consideration were not Captain Brodrick, nor
talkative Mr. Small, nor her suitors Mr. L. and
Mr. W., but her father in the West Indies, and
her old friend Colonel Pinckney, and her brothers
across the sea.
She was very much worried by the dangers of
the campaign in which her father was engaged, and
longed for the war to end. " I wish all the men
were as great cowards as myself," she declared ;
"it would make them more peaceably inclined."
She was also uneasy about the boys, George, who
was preparing to enter the army, and little Tom,
who was ill at school. Finally George received
his commission and went to join the army in
Antigua, and then his sister grew anxious about
the expeditions in which she knew he must take
his part.
Besides this affectionate care for her brothers'
welfare, she seems also4;o have had, as their elder
sister, a strong feeling of responsibility over them,
and in a letter to George, written to him shortly
after his arrival in Antigua, she warus him against
the dangers of " youthful company, pleasure, and
dissipation, and especially against the fashionable
but shameful vice too common among the young
and gay of your sex — the pretending a disbelief
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122 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
of and ridiculing of religion." Then foUows an
expression of her own belief, neither eloquent nor
original, but the frank confession of a sincere and
earnest faith.
This whole letter to her brother George is re-
markably grave and thoughtful. And it is only
natural it should have been so, for it was written at
a serious time in Eliza's life. Her little brother
Tom far ofE in England was growing rapidly worse,
and in Charleston, only a few miles away, her dear
friend Mrs. Pinckney was dying.
First came Mrs. Pinckney's death, and then, a
few months later, it was decided as a desperate
venture that Tom should attempt the voyage to
the West Indies. At the same time General Lucas
sent his son George to bring Mrs. Lucas and the
girls back to Antigua to meet him.
But Eliza was not destined to make her voyage
to Antigua, and it was her old friend Colonel
Pinckney who prevented her departure. The story
is told that, once upon a time, Mrs. Pinckney had
said that rather than have her young favorite lost
to Carolina she would herself be willing to step
down and let her take her place. Poor woman !
She probably never imagined that Fate and her own
husband would take her so thoroughly at her word.
But so it happened. And when Colonel Pinck-
ney, the Speaker of the House of the Assembly,
a member of the Royal Council of the Province, a
distinguished lawyer, a wealthy planter, a man of
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ELIZA LUCAS. 128
^^ charming temper, gay and courteous manners,
well-looking, well-educated, and of high religious
principles," when this " ideal " gentleman offered
himself to Miss Lucas, the choice of a "single
life" somehow lost its charms for her, and she
smilingly agreed to become Mrs. Pinckney the
second.
You see the " right man " had arrived. As Miss
Lucas herself expressed it to her dear Boston
cousin, Fanny Fairweather, who ^seemed disposed
to chaff her about her change of mind, she had
found a man " who came up to her plan in every
title." No wonder the prospect of matrimony with
such a partner was more attractive to her than the
single life of which she had before made choice.
Accordingly, on a warm sunshiny day in May of
the year 1744 she was married to Mr. Pinckney,
" with the approbation of all my friends," as she
prdudly declared. She and her husband did not
go immediately to the Pinckney summer home in
Belmont, but for the first few months they stayed
with her mother, until Mrs. Lucas was able to set
sail with George and little Polly for Antigua.
Although Mrs. Eliza was troubled at the thought
of having to part from her family, still there was
other cause for her to be happy. And she was
happy, eloquently so. Her letters of this period
have a decidedly joyful ring, as if the young bride
were continually congratulating herself upon her
" choice."
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124 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" You will be apt to ask me," she sayB, writing
to an old school friend, — and we can almost see
her expression of smiling content as she makes her
statement, — "you will be apt to ask me how I
could leave a tender and affectionate father,
mother, brother, and sister to live in a strange
country, but I flatter myself if you knew the char-
acter and merit of the gentleman I have made
choice of, you would think it less strange."
And to her father, who had already given his
approbation, she writes :
" I do assure you, sir, that though I think Mr.
Pinckney's character and merit are sufficient to
engage the esteem of any lady acquainted with
him, the leaving of you at such a distance was an
objection I could not easily get over ; but when I
considered that Providence might by some means
or other bring us together again, and that it must
be a great satisfaction to you, as well as to myself,
to know that I have put myself into the hands of
a man of honor, whose good sense and sweetness
of disposition give me a prospect of a happy life,
I thought it prudent as well as entirely agreeable
to me to accept the offer."
As we read this old letter, so quaint and formal
in its wording, yet charming in its simplicity and
earnestness, it is pleasant to know that Mr. Pinck-
ney's " good sense " and " sweetness of disposi-
tion " continued, and that his young wife was able
to realize her " prospect of a happy life."
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ELIZA LUCAS. 125
But this was to have been the story of Miss
Eliza Lucas, a daughter of colonial days; and a
husband's temper and a young bride's confidences
should have had no place in it. Still, now that
we have already peeped, we may go on and, like a
sibyl or gypsy fortune-teller, take a brief glance
into that future in which Mrs. Charles Pinckney,
no longer Miss Eliza Lucas, is the heroine.
First, there comes a picture of her homes, the
big city house on the bay, with its flagstone hall
and heavily panelled, wainscoted rooms, and the
pleasant summer residence in Belmont, five miles
away from Charleston, where the river widened
like a lake and the lawns and meadows stretched
out in broad expanse. We may follow Mrs. Pinck-
ney through her sitting-room, her library, and her
kitchen, out into the servants' quarters and the
garden and upon the shady lawns, busying herself
now here, now there, the same industrious woman
as in her girlhood.
And the new life brought new responsibilities.
On many nights the house was brilliantly lighted
and the halls and drawing-rooms of the Pinckney
mansion were crowded with gentlemen in square-
cut coats and satin knee breeches, and ladies in
rustling brocaded gowns. For Colonel Pinckney
— Chief-Justice Pinckney, as he came to be —
occupied a high position in the colony, and his
wife's social duties were not slight.
But there were other times when the house was
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126 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
quiet except for the patter of children's feet upon
the stairways and the echo of children's voices
through the halls. There were three children:
Charles, the eldest, a clever, serious child of whom
the family legend has told many amazing things,
and warm-hearted, sunny-natured Tom, and their
pretty sister Harriott, " like " her mother, it was
said, fair-haired and blue-eyed, with a dash of her
mother's spirit and energy.
Then there came a day when Mrs. Pinckney no
longer gave her parties to the people of Carolina,
and when the passers-by missed the merry faces of
the three children peering at them from the windows
of the Pinckney mansion. For one March morning
in the year 1758, Chief-Justice Pinckney, the new
Commissioner of the Colony, and his family sailed
away and arrived in England with the springtime.
Five years the Pinckneys remained in England,
living sometimes in London, sometimes at Rich-
mond, sometimes in Surrey, "the garden county
of England," with an occasional season at Bath.
The boys were "put" to school and the whole
Pinckney family made themselves "at home."
To Mrs. Pinckney England had always been
"home," and she was very happy renewing old
friendships and forming new ones. In the country
she had her garden, and in London she enjoyed the
gayeties of the city, especially the theatre, and she
" never missed a single play when Garrick was to
act." Only two things troubled her, the " heart-
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ELIZA LUCAS. 127
lessness" of the Londoners and the "perpetual
card-playing." Of the latter she remarks with
disgust, " it seems with many people here to be the
business of life.*'
Mr. Pinckney, however, who was a Carolinian
bom and had no early associates such as hers to
endear England to him, was not so well satisfied.
"He has many yearnings after his native land,"
wrote his wife, " though I believe never strangers
had more reason to like a place, everything consid-
ered, than we have, but still I can't help applying
a verse in the old song to him sometimes :
** Thus wretched exiles as they roam
Find favor everywhere, but langaish for their native home/'
The Pinckney exiles cei-tainly "found favor
everywhere." Even royalty opened its doors to
them and they were entertained for several hours
by the widowed Princess of Wales and her nine
little princes and princesses. Among them was the
future George III., who, of course, could not know
that his guests would some day be his " rebels."
But these pleasant days in England had to end.
And when the war between France and England
was renewed and the English colonies in America
endangered. Judge Pinckney instantly decided to
return to Carolina and settle his affairs there. His
wife and his little girl went with him. Both the
boys were left at school. It was a sad good-by for
the mother, parting from her sons. Fortunately,
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128 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
she could not know that when she next saw her
little boys she would be a widow and they would
be grown men.
Her widowhood began soon after her arrival in
Carolina. Then there were long, sorrowful days
when she was, as she expressed it, seized with the
"lethargy of stupidity." But her business abil-
ity and her love for her children brought her
back to an interest in life, and in time she was
able to look after her plantation affairs and to
write to her friends in England, thanking them
for their " kindness " to her " poor fatherless boys,"
and sending loving messages to " my son Charles "
and " dear little Tomm."
Of her " Tomm," she writes :
" Tell the dear saucy boy one scrap of a penn
from his hand would have given his mamma more
joy than all ye pleasures of Bath could him."
And again :
" My blessing attend my dear little man and tell
him how much pleasure it gives his mamma to see
his little scrawl, if it is but in writing his name."
To the elder one, Charles, she gave motherly
warnings and advice. She wished to impress him
with the feeling of responsibility, now that he had
become the head of his family.
" My dear child," she says, " tho' you are very
young, you must know the welfare of a whole fam-
ily depends in a great measure on the progress
you make in moi*al virtue, religion, and learning."
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ELIZA LUCAS. 129
How well Charles Cotesworth Pinckney satisfied
his mother's hopes one of her later letters shows,
where she refers to him as ^^ one who has lived to
near twenty-three years of age without once of-
fending me."
Indeed, Charles Pinckney and his younger
brother both became excellent young men, winning
high praise for their " moral virtue, religion, and
learning." And " dear little Tomm " was made the
"Grecian" of his year at Westminster and "Cap-
tain of the Town Boys."
Meanwhile Mrs. Pinckney took great comfort
in her daughter Harriott, who was always with
her, and Harriott's education was her chief task
and greatest pleasure.
" I love a garden and a book," she writes — and
we realize that Mrs. Pinckney's tastes have not
changed since her girlhood ; " and they are all my
amusements, except I include one of the greatest
businesses of my life, — my attention to my dear
little girl. A pleasure it certainly is to cultivate
the tender mind, ^ to teach the young idea how to
shoot,' etc., especially to a mind so tractable and a
temper so sweet as hers."
So, under her mother's good care, Harriott
Pinckney grew up into a tall, pretty, graceful girl,
light-hearted and lively. She soon had her ad-
mirers, among them a Mr. Horry, who was, she
declared, " so joked about me that it prevents his
calling on us, lest it should be thought that he
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180 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
had a serious attachment, and I am so much
joked that I believe I look so simple when he is in
company that he thinks me half an idiot." Mr.
Horry and Miss Pinckney, however, must have
thoroughly recovered from the bad effects of joking,
for they were married soon after and Mrs. Pinck-
ney was left alone with her slaves and her planta-
tion work in her Charleston home.
And now we are coming to Mrs. Pinckney's last
days, and we find them colored with the shades of
war. There had always been more or less of war in
her life. First, in her girlhood, it was the Spanish
war, which threatened her own home and filled
her young heart with anxiety for her father and
her brother; then, in later years, occurred the
terrible Indian raids, in which many a brave Caro-
lina soldier lost his life ; and, finally, when she
was a grandmother, the Revolution came.
Mrs. Pinckney's position at the beginning of the
Revolution was a hard one. For she was, like her
own State of Carolina, part rebel and part Tory.
Among the English people she numbered many of
her dearest friends ; she remembered her fair-haired
English mother and her father in his British regi-
mentals ; as a child, she had trod on English pave-
ment, played with English children, and knelt in
English cloisters. And her heart was loyal to the
king and home. But her boys, in spite of their
fourteen years in England, were, as their father had
been, thoroughly American. From the very first
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ELIZA LUCAS. 181
they had been enthusiastic rebels. Even as a boy at
school Tom had won the name of " Little Rebel,"
and in one of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney's earli-
est portraits he is presented as declaiming against
the Stamp Act. And when the test came their
mother's sympathy went with the cause for which
her boys were fighting and she made their country
her country.
She never regretted her choice. "Eyen after she
lost all that she had, for her country and their
country, she did not complain, but wrote to Tom :
" Don't grieve for me, my child, as I assure you
I do not for myself. While I have such children
need I think my lot hard? God forbid. I pray
the almighty disposer of events to preserve them
and my grandchildren to me and, for all the rest, I
hope I shall be able to say contentedly, * Grod's
sacred will be done.'"
She was rewarded for her brave cheerfulness, and
lived to see America free and at peace, and her
sons respected American citizens. And so her old
age was happy — happier indeed, she declared
smilingly, than her youth had been; for
" I regret no pleasures that I can't enjoy," she
writes, " and I enjoy some that I could not have
had at an early season. I now see my children
grown up and, blessed be God, I see them such as
I hoped. What is there in youthful enjoyment
preferable to this?"
Thus, with a bright smile and a tone of sweet
content, she leaves us.
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VI,
MARTHA WASmNGTON, OF MOUNT
VERNON,
WrPB OP GBlilEBAL 6EOBGE WASHINGTON.
Born in New Kent Ooonty, Virginia, June 21, 17S1.
Died at Mount Vernon, May 22, 1802.
** Not wise or great in any shining worldly sense was she,
but largely endowed with those qoallties of the heart that conspire
to the making of a noble and ronnded character. . . . She was
well worthy to be the chosen companion and mucb-loYed wife of
the greatest of onr soldiers and the pnrest of onr patriots.'* —
Arnie Hollingfworth WharUm,
The fair Penelope in the old Greek days can
hardly have been more admired and sought after
by her troublesome suitors than was a certain capti-
vating widow who lived in our own land over a
hundred years ago. Her name was Martha Custis.
Young, pretty, and reported to be the richest
widow in Virginia, she must have excited ardent
longings in the hearts of the young Virginia plant-
ers and the gallants of the Williamsburg court
who knocked at the door of her beautiful home,
the "White House," on the banks of the York,
183
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184 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
One day, however, they knocked only to be told
that the mistress of the " White House *' was no
longer there.
In May of the year 1768 Mrs. Cnstis left her
homestead and plantation to pay a visit to her
friend Major Chamberlayne, who owned a large
estate along the river, not far from the " White
House." Perhaps the young widow had felt
lonely in her great manor house with only her two
little children and the slaves for company, — it was
less than eighteen months since her husband's
death, — or perhaps the attention of some per-
sistent lover had become annoying. History does
not tell us the reason of her eventful visit at her
neighbor's. But if, as some one has surmised, she
turned to Major Chamberlayne for protection from
the importunities of some suitor her visit was not
a success. For it was during her stay at Major
Chamberlayne's that fate finally overtook her —
fate in the shape of a big Virginia colonel.
The big Virginia colonel who was destined to
put so sudden a stop to Mrs. Custis's widowhood
was already a young military hero. All Virginia
admired him for his brave fight at Braddock's de-
feat, where he had two horses shot under him and
four bullets through his coat. The colonel was a
very tall man, standing " six feet two in his slip-
pers," they say, and his splendid, soldierly figure
as he rode by on his favorite brown horse or walked
with his " light, elastic step " along the roads and
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 185
by-ways of the Old Dominion was one that his
countrymen were proud to recognize.
The renown of his courage and daring had duly
impressed Mrs. Custis. Although the little
widow herself was the most gentle and peace-
loving of women, she delighted to honor warlike
virtues in other people. And we may be sure that
while, at her home on the banks of the York, she
was spinning among her slaves, or singing lullabies
to her babies, or chatting with her guests in the
long parlors, a name often on her lips and in her
thoughts was that of the big Virginia colonel —
George Washington.
How a shy, brown-haired, hazel-eyed little maid
called Patsy would have blushed and started if a
gypsy had looked at her palm and told her that her
own name linked with that greatest American
name would some day be world-famous! But
there is no record that any gypsy or fortune-teller
ever predicted great things of the small girl who
afterwards became Martha Washington.
When she was known as little Patsy Dandridge
she was a sensible, pretty, well-behaved child, who
at an early age learned the mysteries of ^^ cross,
tent, and satin stitch, hem, fell, and overseam,"
how to dance the minuet, and how to play upon the
spinnet. At that time domestic and social accom-
plishments were considered of far greater impor-
tance in a young lady's education than book learn-
ing, and Patsy's intellectual training was somewhat
_ V*M*
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186 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
neglected, as we may judge from the few letters
written by Martha Washington that have come
down to us. Their funny wording and spelling
make us smile now.
But when Miss Martha Dandridge, as a sweet
little debutante of fifteen, entered the gay social
world of the " court " at Williamsburg no one liked
her any the less because she spelled do, no, and go,
" doe," " noe," and " goe." They admired her pretty
face and manners, her grace in dancing, and her
ease in playing on the spinnet. '^ She was soon recog-
nized as one of the reigning belles in the small
world of Williamsburg,'* says the chronicler, " and
straightway engaged the affections of one of its
most desirable partisj Mr. Daniel Parke Custis."
In the course of Mr. Custis's true love, how-
ever, there was a serious obstacle, an obstacle in
the person of his own father, Colonel John.
Colonel John Custis was an erratic gentleman
whose marriage was not the least erratic thing
about him. In the spirit of Shakespeare's Petru-
chio he married a fair and shrewish lady; but
with less happy results than Katherine's husband,
it would seem, if we may go by the inscription
which he commanded his son, upon pain of disin-
heritance, to have engraved upon his tombstone :
" Under this marble lies the body of Hon. John
Custis, Esq., aged 71 years, and yet he lived but
seven, which was the space of time he kept a
bachelor's home at Arlington."
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 187
This would certainly imply that the colonel
was unfortunate in his matrimonial venture. Yet
his unlucky experience did not discourage him
from undertaking the management of his son's
marriage. He chose for his future daughter-in-
law a cousin, Miss Evelyn Byrd, whose father was
a gentleman almost as eccentric as Colonel John
himself.
These two ambitious parents, bent od a union of
their fine estates and aristocratic families, argued,
commanded, and threatened, quite regardless of
the fact that their children had no affection for
each other, and were indeed much averse to this
marriage of convenience. The situation became
dramatic. The fathers grew passionate, but the
young people remained firm in their resistance.
This state of affairs went on for some time, and
Miss Byrd and Mr. Daniel Oustis approached their
thirtieth birthdays while yet in the single state.
All this while Miss Byrd, so the story goes, was
cherishing a hopeless love for an English gentle-
man of royal birth. In the course of time Daniel
came to know the little debutante with the hazel
eyes, and then the thought of a marriage with any
one but Miss Martha Dandridge became intoler-
able to him. While his father's threats grew more
and more severe, Daniel quietly went his way,
courting sweet Miss Patsy, winning her love, and
obtaining her father's consent to their engagement.
At this stage Colonel John's frowns, always
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138 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
terrible, must have been very terrible to the young
girl of sixteen whom he did not wish for a daugh*
ter-in-law, and it would not have been surprising
if they had frightened Miss Martha out of her
usual discreetness. But she seems to have be-
haved with much dignity and good judgment,
and when the death of Miss Byrd finally put
an end to the colonel's favorite project he was
able to listen with some attention to the good
reports he heard of Miss Dandridge. Some sensi-
ble words of hers, when brought to his knowl-
edge, quite took his fancy, and he straightway
made up his mind in favor of the match. A
mutual friend of the father and son immediately
took advantage of the colonel's friendly disposi-
tion and wrote to the young lover,
" Dear Sir : This comes at last to bring you
the news that I believe will be most agreeable to
you of any you have ever heard. That you may
not be long in suspense, I shall tell you at once.
I am empowered by your father to let you know
that he heartily and willingly consents to your
marriage with Miss Dandridge — that he has so
good a character of her that he had rather you
should have her than any lady in Virginia — nay,
if possible, he is as much enamoured with her
character as you are with her person, and this is
owing chiefly to a prudent speech of her own.
Hurry down immediately for fear he may change
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 139
the strong inclination he has to your marrying
directly. I shall say no more, as I expect you
soon to-morrow, but conclude what I really am,
^^ Your most obliged and affectionate humble
servant,
"J. POWEES."
Mr. Custis, we may be sure, acted upon the
advice of his good friend Mr. Powers. He and
Miss Dandridge, who was barely eighteen on her
wedding day, were married "directly," for fear
Colonel John might " change his strong inclina-
tion ; " and according to tradition the erratic old
colonel was the first to salute the bride " with a
kiss on both cheeks."
Although Mr. Custis married his young wife in
such haste, he did not end his days according to
the old adage, repenting at leisure, but found com-
fort and domestic satisfaction in his life with her.
In spite of his queer old father and his shrewish
mother, he was an agreeable, sociable man, and
appears to have made Mrs. Martha a very good
sort of husband. The young couple spent their
winters at the " Six Chimney House " in Williams-
burg, in the midst of court gayeties, while their
summers were passed at their country home on the
banks of the York, always spoken of as " The
White House."
Mr. Custis's story reminds one of the old fairy
tales in which the hero, having undergone all his
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140 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
troubles before marriage, was able to ^^ live happily
ever after." But in Mr. Custis's case the " ever
after ' only lasted seven years, for at the age of
twenty-five Mrs. Custis was left a widow, with her
little Jacky and Patsy to bring up, and one of the
largest estates in Virginia to manage. We read
that she conducted her business affairs wisely, and
showed herself, in regard to money matters, a
capable, level-headed woman.
When, after her first year of mourning and
widowhood, Mrs. Custis went to pay her visit at
Major Chamberlayne's, she was, as we know, ^^a
tempting widow, independent of the jointure land."
Those hazel eyes were as soft and expressive as
they had been in the days when they charmed Mr.
Custis, and very soon they had bewitched that
great man George Washington.
When Colonel Washington, on his mission to
the governor at Williamsburg, crossed William's
Ferry that bright morning in May he had no
suspicion of what awaited liim at the big Cham-
berlayne house opposite. It was the day after Mrs.
Custis's arrival. Several guests were assembled
in her honor, and through the open windows the
sound of laughter and merry voices floating down
to the river must have rung invitingly in the ears
of the young colonel. But he resolutely turned
his horse toward the Williamsburg road.
Almost immediately, however, he was stopped
by Major Chamberlayne. The major had seen
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 141
Washington crossing the river, and had hurried
down to entreat him not to pass by without spend-
ing a few days under his roof. At first, they say,
the colonel replied that he must decline the invi-
tation, and not until Major Chamberlayne men-
tioned the fact that a very charming widow was
visiting him, did Washington hesitate and yield.
The father of our country always was fond of
the ladies, even from the days of his bo}rish love
for the famous " Lowland Beauty." Probably the
discerning major realized this and saved what he
knew would be his best inducement for the last.
It told. Washington received it with dignity, and
said without a smile on his handsome, serious face
that he would " dine — only dine " with the major.
Then, handing his reins to his attendant, Bishop,
and giving instructions to have the horses saddled
and ready for departure early in the afternoon, he
dismounted and walked with the jolly major up to
the house.
We may be sure that several eyes peering from
the windows and doorway of the great manor
house had been watching the major's conference
with the renowned young colonel — those hazel
eyes, too, very likely. And a little stir of excite-
ment went through the rooms as George Washing-
ton was seen nearing the house. But when Major
Chamberlayne entered with his tall, dignified
friend at his side, every one had quieted down to
a calm and sedate reserve, and Washington was
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142 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
presented to the major^s guests with much cere-
mony and propriety.
Mrs. Custis looked very pretty that morning in
a gown of her favorite white dimity, a cluster of
mayblossoms at her belt, and a little white cap
half covering her soft, waving brown hair.
The guests lingered at the table until late in the
afternoon, we are told. The little widow and the
big colonel talked long and earnestly. When
Mrs. Custis smiled. Colonel Washington smiled;
when Mrs. Custis sighed. Colonel Washington
sighed ; and when one of her mayblossoms fell to
the floor, he picked it up and she pinned it on his
coat lapel, while he smiled down affectionately at
her fluffy white cap.
In such pleasant occupation it is no wonder that
Washington forgot the appointed hour of his de-
parture, forgot Bishop and the horses, forgot his
mission to Williamsburg, and even the governor
himself.
Meanwhile the faithful Bishop was outside
waiting with the horses, and wondering what could
keep his master so long, — his master who was
always "the most punctual of men." And the
major, as he stood at the window, looked from
Bishop at the gate to Washington and the widow
in the parlor, and he smiled. The major loved a
joke.
The sun had set and the twilight was falling
when Washington finally started to his feet, declar-
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 148
ing that he must be off. But the major laid a re-
straining hand on the young man's shoulder.
" No guest ever leaves my house after sunset,"
he said. At the same moment the widow's hazel
eyes looked up into the colonel's gray ones, and
Colonel Washington sat down again.
He was soon entering once more into a conver-
sation with the widow which lasted until late in
the evening. And when, the next morning, he
took his leave of her, it was only au revoir for
them. For they had agreed that after the business
with the governor was over, Washington should
proceed to the " White House " and visit Mrs.
Custis there.
The story is that when Washington returned
from Williamsburg that night he was met at the
ferry by one of Mrs. Custis's slaves.
" Is your mistress at home ? " he inquired of the
negro, who was rowing him across the river.
" Yes, sah," the slave replied, and then added,
perhaps a little slyly, his white teeth flashing in a
broad smile, ^^I reckon you's the man what's
'spected."
So we may know that Mrs. Custis was prepared
to receive her distinguished guest. And when, at
sunset, Washington arrived at the " White House,"
the widow was waiting for him in her sweetest
gown add her most becoming cap. The smile with
which she greeted him must have made him feel
very much at home, for it was during this visit
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144 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
that he eagerly pressed his suit, with such success
that Mrs. Custis finally agreed to become Mrs.
Washington.
But Washington's love-making was brought to
a sudden stop. Stem duty was awaiting him on
the frontier, and very soon he was back there,
taking part in the expedition against the French
which terminated victoriously at Fort Duquesne.
Of the love-letters which he wrote to his be-
trothed during this period only one has come down
to us, a manly, affectionate letter, showing the
straightforward nature of the man :
"We have begun our march to the Ohio [he
writes from Fort Cumberland, July 20, 1768]. A
courier is starting for Williamsburg, and I embrace
the opportunity to send a few words to one whose
life is inseparable from mine. Since that happjr
hour when we made our pledges to each other my
thoughts have been continually going to you as to
another self. That all-powerful Providence may
keep us both in safety is the prayer of
" Your faithful and ever affectionate friend,
"G. Washington."
The wedding which took place on the sixth of
the following January was a brilliant one, full of
sunshine, life, and color. The belles and beaux
of Williamsburg were there, and the wealthy
planters from the surrounding country with their
wives and daughters, all very grand in their satins
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 145
and brocades, their gold lace and shining buckles.
Among them was the governor himself, in a beau-
tiful scarlet suit. The bridegroom, we are told,
was splendid in his blue coat lined with red silk,
his gold knee buckles, his powdered hair, and his
straight sword at his side. But the little bride
was the most gorgeous of all. She wore a heavy
white silk gown shot with silver, a pearl necklace
at her throat and pearl ornaments in her hair, and
her high-heeled satin slippers were clasped with
diamond buckles. The story is that she and her
bridesmaids were driven home in a coach drawn
by six horses, while Washington rode beside the
coach on his favorite brown horse.
Life opened brightly for George and Martha
Washington, and their honeymoon did not end
with the proverbial six months, but lasted, we
may truly say, the forty years of their married
Kfe.
Amid the perplexities and harassing cares of
his responsible career it must have been a deep
satisfaction to Washington to have as a companion
one who entered so heartily into his love of
country pursuits, his ^^ simple pleasures " and
** homely duties," one who sympathized so fully
with his thoughts, feelings, and ideals. ^^ The
partner of all my domestic happiness," he called
his wife ; and Mrs. James Warren, writing to Mrs.
John Adams, described the " general's lady " as a
woman qualified ^^ to soften the hours of private
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146 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
life, to sweeten the cares of a Hero, and smooth
the rugged paths of war."
In return, the " Hero " did everything he could
to " soften the hours of private life," " to sweeten
the cares " of a mother, and " smooth the rugged
paths " of housekeeping and letter-writing.
He took entire charge of his wife's property and
managed the estates of her children with the ut-
most care and consideration. When Mrs. Wash-
ington's duties as a hostess became very great, he
wished to save her the small worries and petty
details of housekeeping, and applied for a steward
who could " relieve Mrs. Washington of the drudg-
ery of seeing the table properly covered and
things economically used."
He even helped his wife in the ordering of her
own clothes, and we find him sending abroad for a
salmon-colored tabby velvet sack, " puckered "
petticoats, white silk hose, and white satin shoes of
the smallest, gloves and nets and pocket handker-
chiefs, all '^ most fashionable," and, as the last item
on the list, "sugar candy." So we know Mrs.
Washington had a sweet tooth and a taste for fine
clothes, in which her husband loved to indulge
her.
We also know that letter-writing was always a
severe cross to Mrs. Martha Washington. Wash-
ington edited or drafted for her pen her important
and formal letters. We can imagine the little
woman poring, flushed and weary, over her ink and
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 147
paper, and the great man drawing his chair beside
her, with one of his kind, "benignant" smiles,
straightening the hard words and smoothing the
troublesome sentences.
One of Mrs. Washington's letters, which she
evidently wrote without her husband's help, shows
that she was a fond, worrying mamma. She is
writing to her sister about a visit, in which " I
carried my little patt with me," she writes, " and
left Jackey at home for a trial to see how well I
could stay without him, though we wear gon wone
fortnight, I vras quite impatient to get home. If
I at any time heard the dogs bark or a noise out I
thought there was a person sent for me. I often
fancied he was sick or some accident had happened
to him, so that I think it is impossible for me to
leave him as long as Mr. Washington must stay
when he comes down.'*
In Mrs. Washington's maternal anxieties Wash-
ington sympathized with her, and when the time
came for " Jackey " to be inoculated for the small-
pox, he " withheld from her the information and
purpose, if possible to keep her in total ignorance,
— till I hear of his return or perfect recovery, —
she having often wished that Jack would take and
go through the disorder without her knowing of it,
that she might escape those tortures which sus-
pense would throw her into."
As sweet, gentle Patsy Custis grew up into
womanhood, Mrs. Washington took great comfort
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148 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
in her ^^ little patt," and made a constant com-
panion of her. Mother and daughter used to sew
and spin and knit together, while Washington and
Jacky Custis were busy on the farm or chasing the
fox in the woods and hollows about Mount Vernon.
Patsy accompanied her mother when the mis-
tress of Mount Vernon, in her spandy white apron
and cap, her bunch of keys jingling at her side,
went about the kitchen and slave quarters, super-
intending and directing. And the face of the
^^ dark lady," as Miss Custis was called because of
her dusky eyes and olive skin, was a bright, wel-
come sight in the homes of sorrow and suffering ^
where Mrs. Washington was known and loved.
The death of this dear daughter left a great void
in the Mount Vernon home. Washington deeply
mourned the " sweet, innocent girl," as he called
her. Of his wife's grief he wrote, " This sudden and
unexpected blow has almost reduced my wife to
the lowest ebb of misery." And he adds, " This
misery is increased by the absence of her son."
Her son, Jacky Custis, was at this time in King's
College, New York. The reason why he was there
is a story of itself. At a very youthful age Jacky
had fallen in love with a charming girl named
Eleanor Calvert, a descendant of the famous Lord
Baltimore. The fathers of the young couple al-
lowed them to enter into a formal engagement,
" but," said Jacky's guardian, " John must be edu-
cated before he marries any one." So off to King's
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 149
College, at New York, went " John," and there he
stayed three months, " reading Eleanor Calvert in
every book, and writing Eleanor Calvert in all his
exercises." Under such conditions education did
not progress ; so at the end of the three months
Jack was permitted to return home, and one bright
February morning he and Eleanor Calvert were
married. Jacky's mother sent this sweet, motherly
note to the young bride on her wedding day :
" My dear Nelly : God took from me a daugh-
ter when June roses were blooming. He has now
given me another daughter, about her age, when
winter winds are blowing, to warm my heart again.
I am as happy as one so afflicted and so blest can
be. Pray receive my benediction and a wish that
you may long live the loving wife of my happy
son, and a loving daughter of
" Your affectionate mother,
"M. Washington."
While the music of wedding bells still lingered
in the air, harsher sounds came to disturb the peace
of the Washington home. The mutterings of war
grew loud and vehement. There had been no
pleasant tea-drinkings upon the Mount Vernon por-
ticoes since the Boston Tea Party in December,
but friends and neighbors met often at the Wash-
^ngtons' to discuss politics and war talk. The halls
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160 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
and parlors of the great house rang both with
royalistic speeches and patriotic utterances.
Mrs. Washington went about among her guests,
quiet, agreeable, unobtrusive. She took small part
in the debates, but she listened and treasured cer-
tain remarks, and when the time for action came
she wrote to a friend, ^^ My mind is made up. My
heart is in the cause."
She took a firm stand beside her husband.
** George is right," she wrote. **He always is."
Her pluck and spirit were active. All the mem-
bers of her household were attired in homespun,
that she might do her part towards starving the
English traders and manufacturers ; and her six-
teen spinning-wheels were humming busily all day,
while her deft fingers wove threads and patriotism
together into the cloth. Some time afterwards
Mrs. Washington showed with pride a dress which
was made, during that period, from the ravellings
of brown silk stockings and crimson damask chair-
covers.
Patrick Henry and Edward Pendleton stayed
with Washington the night before they set out
with him for the General Congress at Philadelphia.
Writing of this visit, Mr. Pendleton said :
" I was much pleased with Mrs. Washington and
her spirit. She seemed ready to make any sacrifice,
and was cheerful, though I knew she felt anxious.
She talked like a Spartan mother to her son on
going to battle. ^ I hope you will all stand firm
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 15l
— I know George will,' she said. The dear little
woman was busy from morning until night with
domestic duties; but she g^ve us much time in
conversation and affording us entertainment.
When we set off in the morning, she stood in the
door and cheered us with good words, * God be
with you, gentlemen 1 ' "
To the next Congress, held in May, 1775, Wash-
ington went in the uniform of a Virginia colonel.
He had not foreseen his ap^intment as comman-
der-in-chief, and upon this event he wrote to his
wife in a spirit of earnest modesty and real ten-
derness :
^ My Deabest : I am now set down to write
you on a subject that fills me with inexpressible
concern, and this concern is increased when I re-
flect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you.
It has been determined in Congress that the whole
army raised for the defence of the American cause
shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary
for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take
upon me the command of it.
" You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I
assure you, in the most solemn manner, that 30 far
from seeking the appointment, I have used every
endeavor in my power to avoid it, not only from
my unwillingness to part with you and the family,
but from a consciousness of its being a trust too
great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy
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152 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
more real happiness in one month with you at
home, than I have the most distant prospect of
finding abroad if my stay were to be seven times
seven years. I shall feel no pain from the toil and
danger of the campaign ; my unhappiness will flow
from the uneasiness I know you will feel from be-
ing left alone."
Six months later, being encamped;. in winter
quarters at Cambridge, Washington sent an
"invitation" to hia wife asking her to spend
the season with him, stating, as hb declared,
" the difficulties which must attend the journey
before her."
Mrs. Washington, however, a true wife and
patriot, did not hesitate once before deciding to:
undertake the journey and "spend the winter
with her husband in a camp upon the outskirts of ^>
city then in possession of the enemy." As Wash-
ington's nephew wrote to the general, "she had
often declared she would go to camp if you would
permit her." So, a few days after the invitation
was received, she started out, accompanied by her
son Jack and his wife.
The Washington coach with its four horses, its
postilion in white and scarlet livery, and the
general's wife within, attracted great attention.
Country people rushed to doors and windows for
a sight of the grand lady passing by. At all the
big cities Mrs. Washington was met by an escort
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 158
of soldiers in ContiDental uniform, and all the
great men and their wives came to pay her their
respects. Ringing of bells and enthusiastic cheer-
ing greeted her on all sides. Such was the atten-
tion paid the modest little woman who had never
been outside her Virginia homeland, and to her
there came a feeling of mingled pride and won-
der as she realized what it was to be the wife of
General Washington.
All through the campaign it became the custom
for Mrs. Washington to spend the winters at
headquarters with her husband, while her summers
were passed in anxiety at Mount Vernon. She
was indeed, as one of her letters expressed it, " a
kind of perambulator through eight or nine years
of the war."
Her " winterings " were a consolation and help
to Washington in many ways. One noticeable
fact is that she was able to assist him in decid-
ing questions of social etiquette. And more
questions of this sort arose during the war than
one would suppose. For although our Revolu-
tionary ancestors "fought and bled," they also
danced and dined and made merry. While the
army was shut up in winter quarters, there were
calls to receive, dinners to be given, and balls to
attend. The overburdened general was somewhat
perplexed by these social obligations, and records
having committed '* unintentional offences."
But when Mrs. Washington came with her
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154 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
"ready tact" and "good breeding," she rescued
her husband from all such small annoyances, and
whenever Washington's " lady " was at headquar-
ters, Washington's home was a jolly, comfortable
sort of a place where all were welcomed, generals
and their wives, young officers and merry girls.
Society was especially gay while the army was
encamped at Morristown. Mrs. Washington came
to Morristown late in the season. When the
Washington coach drove up and the little woman
of simple dress and unassuming manners stepped
out, some foolish folks mistook her for an at-
tendant. It was not until the general himself
hastened out to meet her and greet her tenderly
that they recognized " Lady Washington."
They had yet to learn " Lady Washington's "
idea in regard to extravagance in dress or living
during the war. Their eyes were opened when,
one afternoon shortly after her arrival, some Mor-
ristown ladies went to call upon her. They had
heard that the general's wife was a " very grand
lady," so they dressed in their "most elegant
ruffles and silks."
" And don't you think," exclaimed one woman
relating her experiences afterwards, " we found her
knitting and with a speckled apron on ! She re-
ceived us very graciously and easily, but after the
compliments were over she resumed her knitting.
There we were without a stitch of work, and
sitting in state, but General Washington's lady
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 155
with her own hands was knitting stockings for
herself and husband.
^^ And that was not all. In the afternoon her
ladyship took occasion to say, in a way that we
could not be offended at, that at this time it was
very important that American ladies should be
patterns of industry to their country-women, be-
cause the separation from the mother country will
dry up the sources whence many of our comforts
have been derived. We must become independent
by our determination to do without what we can-
not make ourselves. Whilst our husbands and
brothers are examples of patriotism, we must be
patterns of industry."
But Mrs. Washington and the general, although
the most perfect ^'pattern of industry "and the
truest " example of patriotism," were the first to
take part in all the harmless pleasures of camp life.
Along the favorite bridle-path, " Jocky Hollow,"
the commander-in-chief was often to be seen gal-
loping by, his wife frequently at his side mounted
on her handsome bay horse, and following in their
train members of the Life Guard, such young
officers as Benjamin Grymes, Tench Tilghman, or
Alexander Hamilton, and such '' charmers " as the
Livingston girls and Betsey Schuyler.
Mrs. Washing^D, like her husband, was very
fond of young people. She dearly loved Lafayette,
the French " boy," as he was called. Captain Col-
fax was another of her favorites, for whom, it is
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166 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
said, she netted a queue net with her own hands.
She took a motherly interest in Colonel Hamilton
and his love affair, and Hamilton's sweetheart,
Miss Betsey Schuyler, was a frequent visitor of
Mrs. Washington's.
In Betsey's own words we have an interesting
picture of the general's wife as she appeared to
that enthusiastic young woman on her first meet-
ing with her. " Soon after our arrival at Morris-
town," said Betsey, " an invitation was brought to
mamma and me from Mrs. Washington. She
received us so kindly, kissing us both, for the
general and papa were very warm friends. She
was then nearly fifty years old, but was still hand-
some. She was quite short ; a plump little woman
with dark brown eyes, her hair a little frosty, and
very plainly dressed for such a grand lady as I
considered her. She wore a plain gown of home-
spun stuff, a large white neckerchief, a neat cap,
and her plain gold wedding ring which she had
worn for more than twenty years. Her gracious
and cheerful manner delighted us. She was always
my ideal of a true woman. Her thoughts were
then much on the poor soldiers who had suffered
during the dreadful winter, and she expressed her
joy at the approach of a milder springtime."
Martha Washington's thought and care for **the
poor soldiers " are dwelt upon by all who knew her.
At Valley Forge, where the suffering was most
intense, while Washington was writing to the
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 157
dilatory Congress of the " soldiers who might be
traced by the marks left upon the snow by their
frosted and bleeding feet," Mrs. Washington was
doing all she could to supply the much-needed
clothing, warmth, and food.
We have glimpses of her travelling, cloaked and
hooded, her basket on her arm, over the snow to
the soldiers' huts, and the words " God bless Lady
Washington" were heard from many a "straw
pallet " when her kind, motherly face appeared at
the door. One woman who, as a girl, used some-
times to accompany Martha Washington on her
visits to the soldiers' huts has said :
" I never in my life knew a woman so busy from
early morning until late at night as was Lady
Washington, providing comforts for the sick sol-
diers. Every day excepting Sunday the wives of
the officers in camp, and sometimes other women,
were invited to Mr. Potts's to assist her in knitting
socks, patching garments, and making shirts for
the poor soldiers, when materials could be pro-
cured. Every fair day she might be seen with
basket in hand and with a single attendant, going
among the huts seeking the keenest and most
needy sufferer, and giving all the comforts to them
in her power. On one occasion she went to the
hut of a dying sergeant whose young Mdfe was
with him. His case seemed to particularly touch
the heart of the good lady, and after she had given
him some wholesome food she had prepared with
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158 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
her own hands, she knelt down by his straw pallet
and prayed earnestly for him and his wife with her
sweet, solemn voice."
Like a true soldier's wife, Mrs. Washington,
thinking always of the troops and their comforts,
made light of the hardships which she herself had
to endure. She was heard to declare that she pre-
ferred the sound of the fife and drums to all other
music, and in later years she could laugh in recall-
ing the nightly alarms when she and Mrs. Ford
had to shiver under the bedclothes while the wind
swept through the room and guards stood at the
open windows with guns loaded, ready to shoot.
The joy that greeted the victorious close of the
Revolution was shadowed for the Washingtons by
the fate of their dear " Jackey " Custis. He was
dying at Eltham of a fever contracted in the
trenches before Yorktown. Realizing that his ill-
ness was fatal, his one desire was to behold the
surrender of the sword of Cornwallis. So he was
supported to the field, to be present at the final
triumph, and was then carried back to Eltham to
die. His poor wife and mother and Washington,
from the scene of his victory, were all there to say
good-by.
When gentle Patsy Custis died, Washington,
they say, knelt beside her bed in silent prayer ;
but when he saw his " Jacky " taken from him, his
playfellow on the farm and in the chase, his com-
rade-in-arms, the great-hearted general, who never
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 169
loved lightly, threw himself on the couch and
*'wept like a child."
With his usual reticence Washington recorded
the death of young Custis :
" I arrived at Eltham, the seat of Colonel Bas-
sett, in time to see poor Custis breathe his last.
This unexpected and affecting event threw Mrs.
Washington and Mrs. Custis, who were both pres-
ent, into such deep distress that the circumstance
of it prevented my reaching this place (Mount
Vernon) till the 18th."
In their loneliness Washington and his wife
adopted the two younger children of John Custis.
Eleanor, a little dark-eyed girl of two, and George
Washington Parke Custis, who was only six
months old when his father died, became, hence-
forth, the children of Mount Vernon, petted by
the many guests who came to visit George and
Martha Washington. Lafayette recalled his first
glimpse of G. W. P. Custis, standing on the por-
tico of Mount Vernon beside his grandfather.
" He was," said Lafayette, addressing the young
man himself, ^^ a very little gentleman with a
feather in his cap, holding fast to one finger of the
good general's remarkable hand, which (so large
the hand) was all, my dear sir, you could well do
at the time."
Of course " Nellie " and ** Master Washington "
were very dear to their grandmamma's heart, and
there are many references to them in her letters.
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160 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
" My little Nellie is getting well," she writes,
** and Tut (G. W. P. Custis) is the same claver
boy you left him."
But Mrs. Washington found little Nellie some-
thing of a trial too. Nellie was not at all the
quiet, gentle, orderiy little girl her Aunt Patsy
had been. She was full of frisks and pranks, and
would not keep her clothes in order, and would not
learn to play upon the harpsichord. When she
should have been sewing or practising, her grand-
mamma would suddenly catch sight of her flashing
by the window on a half-tamed colt, her ribbons
fljdng behind her, her hat fallen on the ground, her
black curls blown by the wind.
Mrs. Washington, however, was firm and kept
strict guard over her wayward granddaughter.
Nellie was occasionally reduced to tears, and wept
upon her harpsichord until her gprandpapa came to
her rescue and carried her off for a walk in the
meadows or a gallop over the hills.
Mrs. Washington, on her part, pleaded in behalf
of the " claver boy," and Nellie declared " it was
well that grandpapa and not grandmamma was
educating Washington, for grandmamma certainly
would spoil him."
The six years that intervened between Wash-
ington's retirement to Mount Vernon and his
return to public life, his " furlough," as he called
them, were happy, but not so quiet as he and his
wife wished them to be. He described his home
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 161
during that period as a "well resorted tavern."
There were always guests, and a great many of
them, arriving and departing at all hours. After
two years he recorded in his diary, " Dined with
only Mrs. Washington, which I believe is the first
instance of it since my retirement from public life."
Yet, in spite of the many guests, Mrs. Washing-
ton never neglected her housekeeping orders or
shortened her hour of private devotion that always
followed breakfast. And while the morning
visitors arrived and she chatted with them of such
matters as poultry, children, and politics, she went
about superintending the stitches of woolly-headed
little dark people who, perched on stools about the
room, awaited the instruction of " ole Miss."
Washington and his wife were both very loath to
leave their contented, busy, country life at Mount
Vernon, where through the livelong day sjjinning-
wheel and weaving-loom buzzed cheerily within,
while now and then from "grassy hill-top" or
shaded hollow came the merry ringing sound of
horn and hound. At the close of tiie war Wash-
ington had expressed his wish to " return speedily
into the bosom of that country which gave me
birth, and in the sweet enjoyment of domestic
happiness and the company of a few friends to end
my days in quiet." And after his election to the
Presidency he wrote confidentially to General
Knox:
"My removal to the chair of government will
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162 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a
culprit who is going to the place of his execution ;
BO unwilling am I in the evening of a life nearly
consumed in public cares to quit a peaceful abode
for an ocean of difficulties without that compe-
tency of political skill, abilities, and inclinations
which are necessary to manage a helm."
A letter from Mrs. Washington to a congenial
friend sounds this same note of keen regret:
"I little thought when the war was finished
that any circumstances could possibly happen
which would call the general into public life
again. I had anticipated that from that moment
we should be suffered to grow old together, in
solitude and tranquillity. That was the first and
dearest wish of my heart. I will not, however,
contemplate with too much regret disappointments
that were inevitable ; though his feelings and mine
were in perfect unison with respect to our predi-
lection for a private life, yet I cannot blame him
for acting according to his ideas of duty in obey-
ing the voice of his country. It is owing to the
kindness of our numerous friends in all quarters
that my new and unwished-for situation is not
indeed a burden to me. When I was much
younger I should probably have enjoyed the inno-
cent gayeties of life as much as most persons of
niy age ; but I had long since placed all the pros-
pects of my future worldly happiness in the still
enjoyments of the fireside at Mount Vernon."
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 163
There is some sadness in the thought of this
man and woman, so simple in their tastes, in dis-
position so reserved and modest, going reluctantly,
out of an exalted sense of duty and patriotism, to
accept the highest honors their country could
confer; and as President and '^Mistress Presi-
dent" of the United States, though envied by
many an ambitious man and woman, yet secretly
longing to sit beside the quiet ^^ fireside at Mount
Vernon," or to stand upon its portico watching the
lights and shadows flitting across the dear Potomac.
But while Mrs. Washington was homesick at
heart and writing confidentially, " I am more like
a state prisoner than anything else ; there are cer-
tain bounds set for me from which I must not
depart," she never allowed her discontent to ap-
pear, and performed her official duties well. As a
social leader and woman of affairs she is said to
have been "absolutely colorless, permitting no
political discussions in her presence." In every-
thing her dignity and " most pleasing affability "
were apparent.
Friday evenings she held her full-dress recep-
tions. On these occasions Washington, without
hat or sword, walked among his guests a private
gentleman, while Mrs. Washington received in
state, looking taller than usual because of the
fashion of her gown and her wonderful head-dress,
which was known as the "Queen's Nightcap."
These receptions came to an end at the early hour
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164 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
of nine, for it was Mrs. Washington's wish to save
her husband from formal society as much as pos-
sible. As the clock struck nine, she would leave
her place and remark with a gracious smile, ^^ The
general always retires at nine and I usually pre-
cede him." Whereupon, in the words of a con-
temporary, '^all arose, made their parting saluta-
tions, and withdrew."
Every pleasant afternoon Mrs, Washington went
riding in a ponderous but beautiful cream-colored
coach behind six spotless white horses. One who
lived in the days when Washington was President
has left a vivid picture of the " Mistress President "
starting off for a drive. " The door opened," we
are told, *^ when the ^ beheld of all beholders,' in a
suit of dark silk velvet of an old cut, silver or steel
hilted small sword at the left side, hair full
powdered, black silk hose and bag, accompanied
by * Lady Washington,' ^also in full dress, appeared
standing upon the marble steps. Presenting her
his hand, he led her down to the coach with that
ease and grace peculiar to him in everything, and,
as remembered, with the attentive assiduity of an
ardent, youthful lover, having also handed in a
young lady, and the door clapped to, Fritz, the
coachman, gave a rustling flourish with his lash,
which produced a plunging motion in the leading
horses, reined in by postilions, and striking flakes of
fire between their heels and pebbles beneath —
when
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 165
'* ' Crack went the whip, round went the wheels,
As though H!gh street were mad."*
In the midst of the gayeties and duties of social
and official life, the Washington household was
still run with clock-like regularity. The day be-
gan at four o'clock for Greorge and Martha Wash-
ington. When Mr. Peale was engaged to paint
Mrs. Washington's portrait, the time set for the
first sitting was seven o'clock in the morning. At
this early hour the painter hesitated to disturb the
** first lady in the land," and he took a short walk
•before knocking at the Washingtons' door. Upon
his arrival, Mrs. Washington looked at the clock
and reminded Mr. Peale that he was late. And
after he had explained, the industrious little
woman informed him that she had already attended
morning worship, given Nellie a music lesson, and
read the morning paper.
Nellie, entering her teens, was becoming a
beauty, saucy, fun-loving, and tender-hearted.
She was one of the few who had no fear of Wash-
ington. Her bright repartee and clever stories
could chase away the anxious shadows from his
brow and delight him into laughter. She remained
the same naughty Nellie, however, and needed
such a restraining influence as Mrs. Washington's
to keep her proper.
Her grandmother's reproofs were always quiet
and dignified, but they were effective. One day
Nellie and some young girls who were visiting her
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166 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
came down to breakfast in their morning gowns.
Mrs. Washington looked, bnt made no comment.
The breakfast was half over when Nellie and her
friends caught sight of a coach coming up the
drive. They glanced at their gowns and exchanged
looks of consternation. And when the names of
some French officers and young Charles Carroll,
Jr., were announced, they turned to their hostess
in a flutter, begging to be excused to go and dress.
But Mrs. Washington shook her head compla-
cently.
" No, remain as you are," she said decidedly.
" What is good enough for General Washington is
good enough for any of his guests."
Washington's great responsibilities inclined to
make him absent-minded. But his wife could re-
call him. Nellie remembered seeing her grand-
mother seize the general by the buttonhole when
she had anything special to communicate. Where-
upon the general would look down upon the little
woman with a " benignant " smile and become in-
stantly attentive to her slightest wish.
Finally there came an end to Washington's long
term of service for his country, and he and his
wife gladly returned to their "Mount Vernon
fireside " and " the tranquil enjoyments of rural
life." The "first and dearest wish" of their
" heart " was granted, and as Farmer Washington
and wife they grew old together. But their days
of vacation were not many. Less than three years
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MARTHA WASHINGTON. 167
brought to a close their forty years of married
life.
When the great general died his wife was unu-
sually composed. ^^I shall soon follow him," she
said simply.
During her last days she liked best to sit alone
in a little attic room where, from the window, she
could see her husband's grave across the lawn, and
look down upon the light of the wild flowers along
the river bank, and beyond to the bright waters
of the Potomac he loved so dearly.
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VII.
ABIGAIL ADAMS,
WIFE OP JOHN ADAMS AND MOTHER OP JOHN
QUINCY ADAMS.
Born in Weymouth, Nov. 11, 1744.
Died at Bralntree, Oct. 28, 1818.
*^ She was a woman of rare mind, high courage, and of a
patriotism not less intense and devoted than that of any hero of
the Revolution.** — John T. Morse, Jr.
John Adams, writing to his wife amid the con-
fusion and debate of the General Congress at Phila-
delphia, called her " saucy." He said it laughingly,
for her sauciness pleased him. It always had.
John Adams admired wit and spirit in a woman.
He must have or he never would have married
Abigail Adams.
If Abigail Adams was saucy as a wife she was
quite as saucy as a girl. When she and her
" dearest friend," as she called John Adams, were
engaged, she would make no promise to become an
obedient wife or to fear her husband. " As a
critic I fear you," she admitted. **And 'tis the
only character," she added with delightful candor,
" in which I ever did or ever will fear you. What
say you ? Do you approve of that speech? Don't
169
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170 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
you think me a courageous being ? Courage is a
laudable, a glorious virtue in your sex, why not in
mine ? For my part I think you ought to applaud
me for mine."
And he did " applaud " her for hers. Indeed, he
had good reason to do so. For had it not been for
her " courage," she would never have become his
wife.
Her friends and relatives disapproved of the
match. Plain John Adams, one of the " dishonest
tribe of lawyers," son of a small country farmer,
was not considered worthy of Miss Abigail Smith,
the parson's daughter, descendant of John Quincy
and Thomas Shephard and a long, illustrious line
of good Puritan divines. When John Adams was
mentioned Miss Abby heard words of warning
and disapproval passed upon all sides. But the
independent young lady was not frightened by
them. She kept her own opinion of honest John
in his coat of homespun.
Sunday evenings, when John came riding from
his Braintree home along the wooded country
roads to the Weymouth parsonage. Miss Abby was
always there to entertain him. Sometimes she
teased him with such remarks as " Do you think
my letters cheap, sir ? Don't you light your pipe
with them ? " and " Why, my good man, thou hast
the curiosity of a girl." Sometimes she " turned
the other side," as she expressed it, was " sober "
and asked him to tell her all her faults. '^ Be to
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 171
me a second conscience," she entreated. But at
all times she behaved toward him as a young
woman does toward the man she has chosen to be
her husband. She had decided to marry him
"whether or no," and her father's parishioners
might turn their attention to some more docile
girl.
Miss Abby, however, was not the only member
of the Weymouth church who held John Adams
in esteem. Her father. Parson Smith, had a strong
regard for the young lawyer. Dr. Smith, like his
daughter, was a person of good judgment. He
observed that John Adams, in spite of his profes-
sion, was honest. He looked beyond the coat of
homespun and the awkward manners and saw that
John Adams was a genuine gentleman. He forgot
their respective ancestors in admiring those quali-
ties of zeal, determination, and " the infinite capac-
ity for taking pains " that made John Adams great.
And he was not ashamed to receive such a young
man as a son-in-law.
Possibly the sensible doctor had an amused con-
tempt for the narrow-mindedness of his Puritan
people who spoke so slightingly of the lawyer lover
and could see no good in any but ministers and
ministers' sons. At any rate, an old familiar anec-
dote in the Adams family implies as much. The
story that has come down to us, like a smile on
the face of those serious times, is that when the
day arrived for Parson Smith to preach his daughter
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172 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Abby's wedding sermon he chose for his text the
words, " John came neither eating bread nor drink-
ing wine, and yet ye say he hath a devil." And
as the force of this Scriptural passage, spoken ever
so solemnly, fell upon the ears of his listening
parishioners there were those in the little Wey-
mouth meeting-house who understood and there
were those who did not understand. But we may
be sure that the young couple, in fresh attire, for
whose benefit the text was chosen were of the
former sort. For John Adams and his wife were
at no time lacking in a sense of humor.
John Adams's wife was not yet twenty when, in
the brilliant autumn weather of the year 1764, she
married him and went to live in the small frame-
house on the Braintree road. She was, however, a
young woman " wise beyond her years." Her edu-
cation and surroundings had made her so. "I
never went to school," she once said regretfully.
But we know that in those days a girl who " never
went to school " was by no means a phenomenon.
It was not unusual for a girl, even in Massachusetts,
to receive no regular schooling. Indeed, Massa-
chusetts, although it boasted the most learned and
cultivated men in America, was quite as negligent
in the education of its women as any of the other
colonies. Possibly the Puritan rulers of the prov-
ince recalled the early example of the brilliant
Anne Hutchinson, who so nearly turned the coun-
sels of the elders to naught, and consequently
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 173
were determined that no other womaxi should be-
come too wise for them. At all events, they took
no pains to have their daughters well taught. The
three R's were considered a very liberal allowance
of book knowledge for any young woman. Indeed,
"it was the fashion," as Mrs. Adams herself de-
clared, "to ridicule female learning." And so
Miss Abigail grew up, like many another colonial
girl, without the intellectual training of the school-
room and without any of the pleasant school friend-
ships and experiences that go to make the happiness
of childhood.
She was, however, more fortunate than most
little girls of her time in her home influences.
These were distinctly literary. The high standing
of her family, her father's profession, and the near
neighborhood of Harvard College brought the most
refined and educated people of the province to the
Weymouth parsonage. She must have sat by often,
as a child, fixing her big bright eyes on her father's
guests as they talked, listening and understanding
more than any one supposed. And although she
"never went to school," she heard what learned
people thought and knew.
Then, too, she had some very good friends in her
father's library. For there she became acquainted
with the English poets and prose writers. There
can have been no happier times for her than those
hours spent atnong the books, curled up in some
comfortable corner with Pope's verses or a bound
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174 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
volume of the ** Spectator " or one of Mr. Richard-
son's novels. She grew up with the ideas and
fancies of the poets and with the people of the
story world, and her early familiarity with the best
English authors showed in her letters all through
life. She wrote of them and quoted from them
as one who had always known and loved them.
Besides her books Abby had another friend who
taught her a great deal. At Mount Wollaston, the
" Merry Mount," as a part of Braintree was then
called, lived her grandfather, the famous John
Quincy. At his home Abby used to spend much
of her time, in the company of her grandmother, a
woman of ** genuine manners and culture." We
can fancy Miss Abby seated with her knitting on
a low hassock beside her grandmother's rocking-
chair, listening while the old lady told amusing
stories or tales of heroes in myth and fable, or
while she gave those helpful lessons which her
admiring granddaughter never forgot, and referred
to, years after, as " oracles of wisdom."
And we may call up another picture of Miss
Abby in her girlhood, that of the entertaining pen-
woman writing her first letters. One imagines her
and her sisters, Mary, the elder, and Betsey, the
younger, gathered round the table with ink and
quills and blotting-sand, while their mother is near
to correct mistakes and answer the oft-repeated
query, " How do you spell ? " Letter^writing
was a highly cultivated art in those days, a very
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 176
necessary part of every one's education. Paison
Smith's young daughters were set early to the task
of producmg small essays for the benefit of a fai>
away cousin or friend. Some of these letters still
remain, and along with the town news, bits of gos-
sip, and fun-making contained in their pages, ap-
pear criticisms on books and long quotations from
favorite authors which show the literary turn of
the writers' minds. As another proof of their
book-loving tastes these youthful correspondents
delighted to sign themselves under fictitious names.
Miss Abby was Diana until the time of her mar-
riage, and then she gave up her maiden name and
became Portia.
Under such influences and surroundings Abigail
Smith grew up a delicate, brilliant-looking girl
with a bright, vivacious manner and a tongue that
was ever ready with pertinent questions and replies.
In her childhood she had few acquaintances of her
own age, and her friendships had been almost en-
tirely with older people and characters in books.
This had made her unusually imaginative and sen-
sitive, but, fortunately for her, her father's good
sense and fun-loving spirit had descended upon her.
So she was preserved from the too great sensibility
and lack of common sense which her peculiar bring-
ing up might otherwise have caused. She was
romantic, but she was practical too, and quite capar
ble, as we shaUf see, of looking after a house, farm,
and family.
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176 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Her term of socalled young-ladyhood was not
long. Early marriages were the fashion and in this
she followed the custom of her time. One of her
letters of this period, however, has found its way
down to us and shows us how natural and girlish
she was. As we read it, we fall to wondering
whether, when she wrote it, she had not already
beg^n to think of John Adams. She gives us no
hints. Indeed, she denies the charge of having any
lover. But the nature of the denial makes us ex-
claim with Othello, " Methinks the lady doth pro-
test too much."
" You bid me," she writes to her friend Mrs.
Lincoln, *' tell one of my sparks (I think that was
the word) to bring me to see you. Why I I be-
lieve you think they are as plenty as herring when,
alas ! there is as great scarcity of them as there is
of justice, honesty, prudence, and many other vir-
tues. I Ve no pretensions to one. . . . But to
be sober, I should really rejoice to come and see you
but if I wait till I get a (what did you call 'em ?)
I fear you 'U be blind with age."
About the date of this letter John Adams was
*'^ shaking hands with the bar," as he expressed it,
living on the expectation of clients and fees,
and also receiving the advice of the shrewd
old Boston lawyer, Jeremiah Gridly, " not to marry
early, for an early marriage will obstruct your im-
provement and involve you in expense."
But, a few years later, that event had occurred
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 177
which made it possible for Mrs. Lincobi to behold
Miss Abby and her " spark " before she herself was
" blind with age " and which brought Mr. Gridly
to the conclusion that an early marriage does not
always " obstruct a young man's improvement and
involve him in expense."
John Adams and his wife began housekeeping in
a very modest way. Their manner of living was
quite different from that of the Washingtons.
When Mrs. Custis married George Washington he
was a wealthy gentleman and a celebrated colonel.
Their home was one of wealth and elaborate hospi-
tality. But the man whom Miss Abigail Smith
married was neither rich nor distinguished. To
be sure, he was a graduate of Harvard College and
a promising young lawyer in his own province, but
he was " only a farmer's son " and his means were
moderate. There was nothing imposing about the
home to which he brought his young bride, the
little farmhouse on the country road, at the foot of
Penn's Hill. Yet John and Abigail Adams were
as happy there as ever they were afterwards in their
London drawing-rooms and the halls of the White
House. And we may be sure that Mrs. Adams had
no thoughts nor wishes of coming greatness nor
any d^ams of ambassadors' balls and presidential
mansions when she was in the dairy of the Brain-
tree farmhouse skimming milk or in the kitchen
polishing her pots and pans. Nor did the homely
domestic duties of her early married life in any way
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178 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
unfit her for the part she wafi to play in latter days
as the wife of the first American minister to Eng-
land and the lady of the second president of the
United States.
The first ten years of her married life passed
quietly and busily either in Boston or Braintree.
During those early days before the Revolution she
was mostly occupied with her domestic responsi-
bilities and the care of her babies. But she found
time to interest herself in her husband's profes-
sional studies and she sympathized wholly with
him in his ideas on public affairs. Even so soon
she was showing her genius for politics, and, while
she kept her eyes open to the situation of her
country, she was preparing herself for the stand she
was to take in the coming struggle.
We have a glimpse of her at this period in a
letter she wrote to her husband while he was away
" on the circuit." Parson Smith had brought his
daughter and his young grandchildren, Abby and
Johnny, to the old home for a short visit. It was
early one Sunday evening at the Weymouth par-
sonage. Dr. Warren, the dear friend and physi-
cian of the Adams's, whose brave death on Bunker
Hill ten years later they were to mourn so deeply,
was standing in the doorway '' booted and spurred,"
waiting for Mrs. Abigail's letter which he was to
carry with him when he set out. Before the hearth
" our daughter " was rocking " our son," the future
president, to sleep with the song: ^"Come, papa,
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 179
come home to brother Johnny." And by the
window, in the falling twilight, their young mother
was writing to their *' papa " that Sunday seemed
"a longer day than any other when you are ab-
sent" Fortunately for Mrs. Adams she could
not foresee how many other Sundays in the future
were to pass like this one without the congenial
companionship of her " dearest friend."
Yet it was not so many years later that she was
called upon to part with him on a long journey and
a dangerous mission. In August of the year 1774
John Adams left home in the company of Samuel
Adams, Thomas Cushing, and Robert Treat Paine
for the General Congress at Philadelphia.
And now begins the famous correspondence be-
tween Mrs. Adams and her husband, which is val-
uable no less for the near acquaintance it affords
us with the characters of the writers than for the
atmosphere and color it gives to the historical facts
of the time. Never do we like John Adams so
well as during those first years of the Revolution.
Honors and fame had not yet made him vain, head-
strong, and presumptuous. He was full of noble
patriotism and a generous sense of brotherhood.
Sometimes he grows a little bitter over the sacri-
fice he feels that he is making at the cost of his
family and writes to his wife, like the sturdy Pur-
itan descendant that he was, "For God's sake,
make your children hardy, active, and industrious ;
for strength, activity, and industry will be their
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180 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
only resource and dependence." Sometimes he
becomes despondent over public affairs, for his im-
patient, energetic spirit chafed at the delays of
people less courageous than himself. But the
American cause was too dear to him for him to de-
spair more than temporarily. And his momentary
fits of gloom are almost forgotten in hopeful reflec-
tions and bursts of high spirit.
John Adams's letters are delightful, but his wife's
are even more so. Their style, so vivid, bright,
and entertaining, has given her a place among the
world's most charming letter-writers, and their
tone of cheerfulness, courage, and intense patriot,
ism has won for her universal admiration. The
dryest of historians becomes eloquent when talking
of Abigail Adams, and one of John Adams's ablest
biographers goes so far as to say that she would
have been as distinguished as her husband had she
not been handicapped by her sex.
She made her sacrifices and faced her dangers
bravely, Hke other patriots. In John Adams's own
words we are told how she encouraged him in his
intention to devote himself to his country and
" bursting into a flood of tears, said she was sensi-
ble of all the danger to her and to our children as
well as to me, but she thought I had done as I
ought. She was very willing to share in all that
was to come and to place her trust in Providence."
The dangers " to her and to our children " were
not slight. Braintree, where she and the four
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 181
little Adamses were staying, was close to the
British lines. Raids and foraging parties were to
be feared continually. There was little prospect of
more peaceful times. And while, in Philadelphia,
John Adams was proving himself " the most arrant
and determined rebel in the Congress," Mrs.
Adams, at home, was preparing herself, by reading
and reflection, for war. ** Did ever any kingdom
or state," she asks her husband, " regain its liberty
without bloodshed ? I cannot think of it without
horror. Yet we are told that all the misfortunes
of Sparta were occasioned by their too great solici-
tude for present tranquillity, and from an excessive
love of peace they neglected the means of making
it sure and lasting. ' They ought to have re-
flected,' says Polybius, that ^as there is nothing
more desirable or advantageous than peace when
founded in justice and honor, so there is nothing
more shameful and at the same time more perni-
cious when attained by bad measures and purchased
at the price of liberty 1 ' "
Yet even at this intensely serious time her love
of fun had not deserted her. She draws an amus-
ing picture of the cows on the Braintree farm suf-
fering from the drought, and " preferring " to John
Adams and his colleagues in Philadelphia ^^ a peti-
tion setting forth their grievances, and informing
you that they have been deprived of their ancient
privileges, and desiring that they may be restored
to them. More especially as their living by reason
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182 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
of the drought is all taken from them and their
property which they hold elsewhere is decaying
they humbly pray that you will consider them lest
hunger should break through stone walls." This
was a clever parody on the documents which Con-
gress was then receiving. It certainly was a time
of upheaval where even the cows were complaining.
In a letter dated September 14, this special cor-
respondent of Revolutionary days informs her hus-
band of the ** warlike preparations" which the
governor was making in Boston — the mounting
of cannon upon Beacon Hill, digging intrenchments
upon the Neck, placing cannon there, throwing up
breastworks, and encamping a regiment. And then
she goes on to give a graphic account of how they
secured the gunpowder from the British in her own
town of Braintree. " About eight o'clock Sunday
evening," she writes, " two hundred men, preceded
by a horse-cart, passed by the door, marched down
to the powder-house, took the powder, carried it
into the next parish, where there were fewer
Tories, and hid it there." Upon their return Mrs.
Adams, who could not restrain her interest in their
proceedings, opened her window and looked out.
And one of the men, recognizing her, asked if she
wanted any powder. '*No," she replied, "since it
is in such good hands." Then she tells how on the
way they captured a '' King's Man," who held two
warrants against the Commonwealth. The men
commanded him to give these up, and upon his
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 188
producing them, they formed themselves into an
orderly debating society, and voted whether or not
they should bum the hostile papers. The afl&rma-
tives had it. And so, by the light of a single lan-
tern, standing about in an impressive circle, grim
and judicial, they burned the offending warrants.
** They then called a vote," continues Mrs. Adams,
** whether they should huzza, but it being Sunday
evening, the vote passed in the negative." One
wonders at the conscience and self-control of those
Puritan patriots. The most enthusiastic must have
wished it were any day but Sunday.
This interesting letter and Mrs. Adams's other
letters of the same year (1774) were written to her
husband during the session of the first Congress at
Philadelphia. The first Congress sat only a few
months. It merely consulted and remonstrated.
But the second Congress, to which John Adams set
out in April of the following year, was occupied
with graver matter than that of consultation and
remonstrance. The first gun had been fired at
Lexington only four days before his departure.
Congress now had to deliberate and debate con-
cerning war. And meanwhile the actual battle
was being fought in the near neighborhood of the
Braintree farmhouse.
From the top of Penn's Hill Mrs. Adams could
watch the struggle that was to bring about the inde-
pendence of America. One hot June afternoon, with
her daughter Abby and her little son John Quincy,
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184 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
she climbed to the summit of the hill and there,
looking through the clear air across the bay, she
saw the flaming ruin of Charlestown and the smoke
and fire of Bunker Hill. And the next day, while
" the distant roar of the cannon " was still sound-
ing in her ears and so ^^ distressing " her that she
could neither " eat, drink, nor sleep," her ** burst-
ing heart found vent at her pen," and in a moment
of intense " agitation," sympathy for her suflfering
countrymen, and grief at the death of her friend
Dr. Warren, she wrote to her husband :
" * The race is not to the swift nor the battle to
the strong ; but the God of Israel is He that giveth
strength and power unto his people. Trust in him
at all times, ye people, pour out your hearts before
him ; God is a refuge for us.' Charlestown is laid
in ashes. The battle began upon our intrench-
ments upon Bunker's Hill Saturday morning about
three o'clock and has not ceased yet, and it is now
three o'clock Sabbath afternoon. It is expected
they will come over the Neck to-night and a dread-
ful battle must ensue. Almighty God, cover the
heads of our countrymen and be a shield to our
dear friends. How many have fallen we know
not. May we be supported and sustained in the
dreadful conflict."
On a blustering March day in the following
year she was again on the hilltop and witnessed
the storming of Dorchester Heights. ** I have just
returned from Penn's Hill," she writes, " where I
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 185
have been sitting to hear the amazing roar of can-
non and from whence I could see every shell that
was thrown. The sound I think is one of the
grandest in nature. 'T is now an incessant roar ;
but oh, the fatal ideas that are connected with that
sound. How many of our countrymen must fall."
That night she went to bed at twelve, she says,
and was up again a little after one. She could not
sleep for the " rattling of windows, the jar of the
house, the continued roar of twenty-four-pounders,
and the bursting of shell."
Finally, only a few days after that dreadful
night, she stood at her lookout on Penn's Hill and
watched the British fleet of one hundred and
seventy sail drop down the liarbor and vanish from
Boston water. She was impressed with the
number of boats. It looked " like a forest," she
said. And wi'th patriotic pride she exclaimed,
"Our general may say with Caesar, 'Veni, vidi,
vici.'"
During the many months in which the war raged
round her doors her house was an asylum where
soldiers came for a lodging, breakfast, supper, and
drink, where the tired refugees from Boston sought
refuge for a day, a night, or a week. '' You can
hardly imagine how we live," she writes, "yet —
" « To the honseless child of want
Our doors ore open still,
And though our portions are but scant
We give them with good will.' "
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186 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
When newB of the raids, battles, and burnings
around Boston reached the ears of John Adams
he naturally felt great anxiety for the safety of his
wife and children. From the "far country," as
Mrs. Adams called Philadelphia in those days of
travelling coach and post chaise, he sent words of
encouragement and stoical advice. ^^In a cause
which interests the whole globe," he says, "at a
time when my friends and my country are in such
keen distress, I am scarcely ever interrupted in the
least degree by apprehensions for my personal
safety. I am often concerned for you and our
dear babes, surrounded as you are by people who
are too timorous and too susceptible of alarms.
Many fears and jealousies and imaginary evils will
be suggested to you, but I hope you will not be
impressed by them. In case of real danger, of
which you cannot fail to have previous intimations,
fly to the woods with our children."
This startling alternative of " flying to the woods
with our children " might have frightened a woman
less brave than Mrs. Adams. But John Adams
knew his wife's firm mettle. Her letters are con-
tinually giving him proof of her cheerfulness and
courage. "I have been distressed but not dis-
mayed," she writes ; and again, " Hitherto I have
been able to maintain a calmness and presence of
mind and hope I shall, let the exigency of the time
be what it will." She chides him for fearing to tell
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 187
her bad news. " Don't you know me better than
to think me a coward ? " she says.
Her husband gave expression to his pride and
pleasure in her "fortitude." "You are really
brave, my dear," he tells her. " You are a heroine
and you have reason to be. For the worst that
can happen can do you no harm. A soul as pure,
as benevolent, as virtuous, and pious as yours has
nothing to fear but everything to hope from the
last of human evils."
At that troubled time Mrs. Adams's " fortitude "
was tried by privation as well as danger. There
were many hardships to be endured from having
the British in possession of Boston. She and her
" dear babes " were forced to live in a most frugal
way. Once they were four months without flour.
And in one of her letters she writes : " We shall
very soon have no coffee nor sugar nor pepper."
Her cry for pins is pathetic. "Not a pin to be
purchased for love or money," she exclaims. " I
wish you would convey me a thousand by any
friend travelling this way. It is very provoking
to have a plenty so near us but, Tantalus-like, not
to be able to touch." " Pray don't forget my
pins " becomes a constantly recurring injunction.
Nor was this earnest prayer for pins allowed to go
unanswered, for a gallant Philadelphia gentle-
man to .whom it was permitted to read certain
parts of John Adams's letters from " Portia " was
so moved by the petition contained in them that
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188 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
he sent a " large bundle," says John Adams, " packed
up with two great heaps of pins with a very polite
card requesting Portia's acceptance of them."
However, Mrs. Adams was not always so fortu-
nate as in this circumstance of the pins. And
when, later on, she had occasion to long for some
tea to cure ^ a nervous pain " in her head, she met
with a sad disappointment. The story of the tea
is an amusing one and brings John Adams, his
" Portia," and the canister of green tea very vividly
before us. It happened that some time after Mrs.
Adams had expressed her wish for the " herbs "
she went to " visit " her cousin and " sister dele-
gate," as she called Mrs. Samuel Adams. '^She
entertained me," writes Mrs. John to her husband,
" with a very fine dish of green tea. The scarcity
of the article made me ask where she got it. She
replied that her sweetheart sent it to her by Mr.
Gerry. I said nothing, but thought my sweetheart
might have been equally kind considering the
disease I was visited with, and that was recom-
mended as a bracer."
It did seem rather unfeeling of "my sweetheart "
to forget his poor wife's headache and we do not
blame her for that silent reproach. But in reality
" Goodman " John had not been so unfeeling as he
appeared. For when he read his wife's mention
of that pain in her head he had been properly
concerned and straightway, he says, " asked Mrs.
Yard to send a pound of green tea to you by Mr.
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 189
Geny. Mrs. Yard readily agreed. When I came
home at night," continues the much "vexed"
John, " I was told Mr. Geny was gone. I asked
Mrs. Yard if she had sent the canister. She said
yes and that Mr. G«rry undertook to deliver it
with a great deal of pleasure. From that time I
flattered myself you would have the poor relief of
a dish of good tea, and I never conceived a single
doubt that you had received it until Mr. Gerry's
return. I asked him accidently whether he had
delivered it, and he said, ^Yes; to Mr. Samuel
Adams's lady.' "
We really cannot blame honest John for being
somewhat "vexed," considering that tea was so
" amazingly dear, nothing less than forty shillings,
lawful money, a pound." However, his vexation
did not prevent his sending a second canister of
tea, with very careful instructions this time as to
which Mrs. Adams was to receive it. So at last
Mrs. John had her " dish of green tea." With this
the story ends and we are left to surmise that the
lady's headache was cured and that, in the days
when tea became more plentiful, she and her " sweet-
heart " were able to laugh over that other canister
which Mrs. Sam enjoyed.
In those Revolutionary times tea leaves were not
the only things that went astray. Letters were
continually miscanying. Much of the correspond-
ence was captitred by the Tories and ridiculed in
their papers. Consequently, one had to be partic*
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190 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
ular in selecting one's letter-carriers, and we find
John Adams sending to his wife by Dr. Franklin,
Revere, and the " brave and amiable George Wash-
ington." When the latter gentleman arrived with
the post, Mrs. Adams was for once as interested in
the messenger as in her letter and writes enthusi-
astically of him to her husband — "I was struck
with General Washington. You had prepared me
to entertain a favorable opinion of him but I
thought the half was not told me. Dignity with
ease and complacency, the gentleman and the
soldier look agreeably blended in him. Modesty
marks every line and feature of his face." With
a few strokes of her pen she has brought George
Washington very clearly before us. There are
many such good portraits in her pages.
During the first days of the Revolution Mrs.
Adams's letters are taken up chiefly with mention
of public men and public events, for, like her
husband, she made her country her first interest
and care. But when the war passed out of her
territory and she ceased to be an eye witness of the
struggle, her letters become more private in chaiv
acter and have to do principally with her house,
her farm, her family, and her thoughts. Her cor-
respondence does not, however, lose in charm be-
cause of its change in subject. There is as much
cause to admire Mrs. Adams now as formerly.
Under her guidance we see the wheels of domestic
empire running smoothly. Indeed, her " prudence "
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ABIGAIL ADAMS, 191
and "frugality" during her husband's long term
of service to his country saved him from ending
his days, as did some others of our greatest Ameri-
cans, in mortification and want.
Abigail Adams's friends knew what a "good
manager" she was. Gen. James Warren took
pleasure in writing to John Adams at Philadelphia
that he had called upon Mrs. Adams on his way to
Watertown and never saw the farm looking better.
" Mrs. Adams is likely to outshine all the farmers,"
he said.
Mr. Adams, repeating the compliment in a letter
to his wife, adds fondly, " He knows the weakness
of his friend's heart and that nothing flatters it
more than praises bestowed on a certain lady."
Then the " certain lady " makes answer, " I hope
in time to have the reputation of being as good a
farmeress as my partner has of being a good states-
man." And her partner, taking up the ball, tosses
it back again. " Your reputation as a farmer or
anything else you undertake I dare answer for,"
he says. " Your partner's character as a statesman
is much more problematic." John Adams and his
wife in the course of their married life said many
nice things of each other.
It was a high compliment to his wife's intelli-
gence that John Adams discussed with her the
weighty affairs and knotty problems with which he
was concerned as frankly and seriously as if she
had been one of his fellow congressmen. He knew
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192 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
her understanding in such matters. In one of his
letters, comparing her and Mrs. Hancock, he says,
^^ She (Mrs. Hancock) avoids talking upon politics.
In large and mixed companies she is totally silent
as a lady ought to be. But whether her eyes are
so penetrating and her attention so quick to the
words, looks, gestures, sentiments, etc., of the com-
pany as yours would be, saucy as you are this way,
I won't say." In another letter he goes so far as to
tell his wife that he thinks she ^' shines as a states-
woman." And when she informs him that she has
been chosen ^^ one of a committee of three ladies to
examine the Tory ladies " he is quite delighted and
hails her as " politician " and " judgess."
One cannot but take a sly sort of pleasure at the
way in which Mrs. Adams approaches her husband
with the now hackneyed but then quite fresh sub-
ject of " Woman's Rights." *' I long to hear that
you have declared an independency,'* she writes
her constructive statesman. " And, by the way, in
the new code of laws which I suppose it will be
necessary for you to make, I desire you would re-
member the ladies and be more generous and favor-
able to them than your ancestors. Do not put such
unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.
Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.
If particular care and attention is not paid to the
ladies we are determined to foment a rebellion and
will not hold ourselves bound by any laws in which
we have no voice or representation."
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 193
Mr. Adams answers her appeal with a jest:
" As to your extraordinary code of laws, I cannot
but laugh. We have been told that our struggle
has loosened the bonds of government everywhere,
that children and apprentices are disobedient, that
schools and colleges are grown turbulent, that In-
dians slighted their guardians, and negroes grew
insolent to their masters. But your letter was the
first intimation that another tribe, more numerous
and powerful than all the rest, were grown discon-
tented. This is rather too coarse a compliment,
but you are so saucy I won't blot it out. Depend
upon it, we know better than to repeal our mascu-
line system. Although they are in full force, you
know they are little more than theory, and in prac-
tice we are the subjects. We have only the name
of masters, and rather than give up this, which
would completely subject us to the despotism of
the petticoat, I hope General Washington and all
our brave heroes would fight."
But although John Adams treated Mrs. AbigaiFs
plea for her sex in this humorous fashion, he put a
high estimate on feminine powers. In a conversa-
tion with his friend James Warren, after admitting
how inevitable is the influence of women on poli-
tics, he said :
^* If I were of the opinion that it was best for a
general rule that the fair sex should be excused
from the arduous cares of War and State, I should
certainly think that Marcia [Mrs. Warren] and
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194 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Portia ought to be exceptions, because I have ever
ascribed to these ladies a share — and no small one
neither — in the conduct of our American affairs."
" Portia " pretended to be quite well aware of
these "feminine powers" which her husband ac-
knowledged, and ends her dispute with him over
the " New Code " with this laughing rejoinder :
" Notwithstanding all your wise laws and maxims,
we have it in our power not only to free ourselves
but to subdue our masters, and, without violence,
throw both your natural and legal authority at our
feet, —
(( < Charm by accepting, bj submitting swaj,
Yet have our humor most when we obey.' "
When, however, a little later, the moment of the
" Declaration " arrived, she forgot her desire for
the independence of her sex in her gladness over
the independence of her country. Of that memor-
able July day when the Declaration was made, John
Adams wrote to his wife, " It ought to be com-
memorated as a day of deliverance by solemn acts
of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be sol-
enmized with pomp and parade, with show, games,
sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from
one end of the continent to the other, from this
time forward forevermore. You will think me
transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am
well aware of the toil and blood and treasures that
it will cost us to maintain this Declaration, and
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 195
support and defend the States. Yet through all
the gloom I can see the rays of ravishing light and
glory. I can see that the end is more than worth
all the means. And that posterity will triumph in
that day's transaction, even although we shall rue
it, which I trust in God we shall not."
In a spirit that harmonized with her husband's
expression of exalted patriotism, Mrs. Adams an-
swered him : " By yesterday's post I received two
letters dated 3rd and 4th of July, and though your
letters never fail to give me pleasure, let the sub-
ject be what it will, yet it was greatly heightened
by the prospect of the future happiness and glory
of our country. Nor am I a little gratified when I
reflect that a person so nearly connected with me
has had the honor of being a principal actor in
laying the foundations of its future greatness.
May the foundation of our new Constitution be
Justice, Truth, Righteousness ! Like the wise
man's house may it be founded upon these rocks
and then neither storms nor tempests can over-
throw it."
When the time came for the Declaration to be
proclaimed in Boston Mrs. Adams went "with
the multitude into King street " to hear the read-
ing of the proclamation and to take part in the
mutual congratulations which followed, amid the
ringing of bells, firing from privateers, forts, and
batteries, the booming of cannon, ** cheers which
rent the air," and the glad cry of " God save our
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196 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
American States." "Every face was joyful," ahe
writes, and we may be sure no face in all that en-
thusiastic multitude expressed greater happiness
than her own.
It was during this memorable summer of '76,
after the Declaration had fired all patriotic souls,
great and small, with a zeal to serve their country,
that Mrs. Adams's eldest son entered upon his first
public oflBce — that of post-rider between Boston
and Braintree. Probably Master John, at that
time a little fellow of nine years, felt fully his own
importance mounting his horse, riding under
danger of capture the eleven miles to Boston and
the eleven miles home, bringing his mamma all the
latest news and carrying in his pocket the welcome
letter from Philadelphia.
Mrs. Adams has not failed to leave us a picture
of the young post-rider. **I sent Johnny last
evening to the post-office for letters," she writes.
" He soon returned and pulling one from hia gown
gave it me. The young rogue, smiling and watch-
ing mamma's countenance, draws another and then
another, highly gratified to think he has so many
presents to bestow."
"Johnny," the post-rider, and his sister and
brothers were, like their parents, brave and loyal
patriots. " John writes like a hero glowing with
ardor for his country and burning with indignation
against his enemies," says his proud father.
"Charles' young heroism charms me; kiss him."
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 197
The statesman father's thoughts are continually
travelling to his "babes*' at home. He tells of
how he walked the city streets " twenty times and
gaped at all the store windows like a countryman,"
in order to find presents suitable to send to his
" pretty little flock." His letters to his wife con-
tain many grave injunctions about the children.
"Take care that they don't go astray," he says.
" Cultivate their minds, inspire their little hearts,
raise their wishes. Fix their attention upon great
and glorious objects. Root out every little thing,
weed out every meanness. Let them revere noth-
ing but religion, morality, and liberty."
And their mother answers, " Our little ones,
whom you so often recommend to my care and in-
struction, shall not be deficient in virtue or probity
if the precepts of a mother have their desired
effect ; but they would be doubly enforced could
they be indulged with the example of a father
alternately before them. I often point them to
their sire —
** ^ . . . engaged in a corrupted state
Wrestling with rice and faction.' "
Mrs. Adams's influence on her children was
strong, inspiring, vital. Something of the Spartan
mother's spirit breathed in her. She taught her
sons and daughter to be brave and patient, in spite
of danger and privation. She made them feel no
ten-or at the thought of death or hardships suffered
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198 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
for one's countiy. She read and talked to them of
the world's history. We find that " Master John "
read Rollins' Ancient History aloud to his mother
when he was only seven years old. And every
night, when the Lord's prayer had been repeated,
she heard him say that ode of Collins beginning,
^^ How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest."
The Adams children grew up under firm disci-
pline and vigorous training, and a strength of char-
acter was established that has lasted through suc-
ceeding generations. While the descendants of
other great Americans are now comparatively un-
known, the Adams lineage still remains, by com-
mon consent, the most remarkable family in our
country.
Yet tenderness as well as firmness showed in
Mrs. Adams's love for her "little ones." She
dwells sadly and fondly on the picture of Tommy,
the youngest, sick with the pestilence. " From a
hearty, hale, corn-fed boy he has become pale, lean
• and wan," she says. " He is unwilling any but
mamma should do for him."
Upon the education of her children Mrs. Adams
spent much thought and energy. But her efforts
to teach them made he^ feel more keenly than ever
her own deficiencies in book learning. Writing to
her husband, she says, " If you complain of neglect
of education in sons what shall I say of daughters
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 199
who every day experience the want of it. With
regard to the education of my own children I feel
myself soon out of my depth, destitute in every
part of education. I most sincerely wish that
some more liberal plan might be laid and executed
for the benefit of the rising generation and that
our new Constitution may be distinguished for
encouraging learning and virtue. If we mean to
have heroes, statesmen, and philosophers, we should
have learned women. The world perhaps would
laugh at me, but you, I know, have a mind too
enlarged and liberal to disregard sentiment. If as
much depends as is allowed upon the early educa-
tion of youth and the first principles which are
instilled take the deepest root great benefit must
arise from the literary accomplishments in women."
John Adams, on his part, laments that he is not
more learned. He especially regrets his ignorance
of the French language. ^^I wish I understood
French us well as you do," he writes his wife. He
urges her to teach it to her children, for he sees
more and more, he says, that it will become a
necessary accomplishment of an American gentle-
man or lady. And he ends in his characteristically
honest way — John Adams's word always meant a
corresponding deed — by asking for " your thin
French grammar which gives you the pronuncia-
tion of the French words in English letters."
This realization of their own deficiencies made
John and Abigail Adams most serious, conscien-
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200 'COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
tious, and persevering in the pursuit of learning
for themselves, their children, and coming generar
tions. They were among the first Americans to
talk of a " Higher Education."
It is remarkable to see upon how many of the
great questions of that day and of later days Mis.
Adams has spoken. She is alwajrs logical and
forcible. Of slavery she said : " I wish most sin-
cerely that there was not a slave in the province.
It always appeared a most iniquitous scheme to
me — to fight ourselves for what we are daily rob-
bing and plundering from those who have as good
a right to freedom as we have."
And while she was interesting herself in all the
problems that were arising in the new nation and
discussing them freely in her correspondence with
her husband, she was longing ardently for the time
when he and she might be permitted to live together
once more. " I wish for peace and tranquillity,"
she wrote him. " All my desire and all my ambi-
tion is to be esteemed and loved by my partner, to
join with him in the education and instruction of
our little ones, to sit under our own vines in peace,
liberty, and safety."
John Adams was as desirous as she for the ^^ peace,
liberty, and safety " that would make it possible for
him to retire from public life and enter into the
enjoyments of " domestic and rural felicity." " The
moment our affairs are in a more prosperous way,"
he informs her, ^^ and a little more out of doubt,
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 201
that moment I become a private gentleman, the re-
spectful husband of the amiable Mrs. Adams of
Braintree, and the affectionate father of her chil-
dren, two characters which I have scarcely supported
for these three years past, having done the duties
of neither." He describes himself as " a lonely,
forlorn creature " whose yearnings for his wife and
children are known only to "God and my own
soul." His chief pleasure, he says, is in writing
to her and receiving her " charming letters." Yet
letters are but a poor sort of substitute for her so-
ciety. ** I want to hear you tliink, and to see your
thoughts," he tells her. He tries to persuade her
to come and join him in Philadelphia. " If you
will come," he says, " I shall be as proud and happy
as a bridegroom."
His practical wife, however, will not let herself
be tempted by his "invitation." She expresses
loving concern lest his " clothes should go to rags,
having nobody to take care of you on your long
journey," and she "cannot avoid repining that the
gifts of fortune were not bestowed upon us so that
I might have enjoyed the happiness of spending
my days with my partner. But as it is," she con-
cludes in that spirit of brave cheerfulness that was
hers in little as well as big things, " I think it my
duty to attend with frugality and economy to our
own private affairs ; and if I cannot add to our
little substance, yet see that it is not diminished.
I should enjoy but little comfort in a state of idle-
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202 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
ness and uselessness. Here I can serve my partner,
my family, and myself, and enjoy the satisfaction
of your serving your country." Occasionally she
has courage enough even to joke over their separa-
tion. " My uncle Quincy inquired when you were
coming home," she writes. " He says if you don't
come soon he would advise me to procure another
husband." But for the most part she is silent
about it or is forced to let " a sigh escape."
In one of her escaping sighs Mrs. Adams says :
" It is almost thirteen years since we were united^
but not more than half that time have we had the
happiness of living together. I consider it a sacri-
fice to my country." Yet this "sacrifice" was
small in comparison with one which she was soon
to make. During those tliirteen years the distance
between her husband and herself had not been very
great, and their means of communication had been
reasonably quick and sure. But in November of
the year 1777 Mr. Adams received a commission
which sent him to a foreign shore " over seas cov-
ered with the enemy's ships." Some words of Mrs.
Adams spoken at an earlier period read like a
prophecy for this time of fresh parting. " I very
well remember," she says, " when the eastern cir-
cuits of the courts which lasted a month were
thought an age, and an absence of three months
intolerable ; but we are carried from step to step,
and from one degree to another, to endure that
which first we think insupportable." It was
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 203
in exact accordance with this statement that Mrs.
Adams was forced at last to see the distance from
Boston to Philadelphia extend to France, England,
and Holland and the separation of months become
one of years.
Mr. Adams set out in his new capacity, that of
joint commissioner with Dr. Franklin at the court
of France, in the spring of 1778. He took with
him his eldest son, John Quincy. Never before
in all her experience did Mrs. Adams undergo so
severe a trial as at this time. Vessels carrying
letters were seized by the enemy. For months she
received no word of her voyagers. The false re-
port that Dr. Franklin had been assassinated
reached her ears, and made her fear the same fate
for the other commissioner. So she lived in a state
of the utmost anxiety, dreading shipwreck or cap-
ture, and haunted by the " horrid idea of assassina-
tion." But at last came the welcome news that
" Johnny" and his father were safe in France, that
"great garden," as her husband called it.
John Adams writes to his wife of the " innumer-
able delights " of that sunny land, but assures her
he would not exchange " all the magnificence of
Europe for the simplicity of Braintree and Wey-
mouth. To tell you the truth," he adds rather
slyly, " I admire the ladies here. Don't be jealous.
They are handsome and very well educated. My
venerable colleague (Dr. Franklin) enjoys a privi-
lege here that is much to be envied. Being seventy
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204 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
years of age, the ladies not only allow him to em-
brace them as often as he pleases, but they are per-
petually embracing him."
Mrs. Adams was not made at all *' jealous " by
this flattering account of the French ladies. She
confesses, however, that she would not care to
have her husband's experiences with them ^^ similar
to those related of your venerable colleague whose
mentor-Uke appearance, age, and philosophy must
certainly lead the politico-scientific ladies of France
to suppose they are embracing the god of wis-
dom in a human form; but I who own that I
never yet ' wished an angel whom I loved a man '
shall be full as content if those divine honors are
omitted."
Yet while Mrs. Adams was joking with her hus-
band about his admiration for the French ladies,
she was finding ^^ the idea that three thousand
miles and a vast ocean divide us insupportable."
She was paying dearly for her "titled husband."
Six years, with the exception of a brief visit from
him and her son in the summer of '79, she lived
without the companionship of either. For Mr.
Adams, whose diplomatic ability had been recog-
nized by Congress, was employed by that body
upon various commissions among the European
powers, and during his long stay abroad he kept
'* Johnny " with him, that his son might enjoy the
advantages of journey and foreign study.
Mrs. Adams did not hear very regularly or
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 205
particularly from her travellers. A large propor-
tion of the letters which they wrote to her never
reached their destination. Many were lost at sea
or, for fear of capture, were destroyed by those
carrying them. Mrs. Adams had to complain con-
stantly of the "avidity of the sea god,*' who cruelly
destroyed her letters and had not "complacence
enough to forward them " to her. Moreover, the
letters which did arrive were generally short and
unsatisfactory. John Adams declared that there
were spies upon every word he uttered and upon
every syllable he wrote. Not even to his wife
could he write freely or so affectionately as form-
erly. The British might get hold of their letters
and then, he reflected, what ridiculous figures she
and he would make " in a newspaper, to be read by
the whole world " 1
Since such was the condition of affairs, we can-
not wonder that Mrs. Adams felt she had "re-
signed" a great deal for her country, that she
could not refrain from considering the "honors"
with which her husband was " invested " as " badges
of her unhappiness," and that she sometimes wished
for that " dear untitled man to whom she gave her
heart." Still above all her moods of longing, lone-
liness, and sadness, her patriotism rose supreme.
"Difficult as the day is," she bravely declared,
" cruel as this war has been, separated as I am, on
account of it, from the dearest connection in life, I
would not exchange my country for the wealth of
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206 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
the Indies nor be any other than an American
though I might be queen or empress of any nation
on the globe."
During this period she lived, as she expressed it,
^^ like a nun in a cloister " and often ^^ smiled to
think she had the honor of being allied to an am-
bassador." Yet never does she appear more able,
energetic, and versatile than at this time of quiet,
country life. We see her as a farmer discussing
her crops, as a merchant talking of values and
prices, and as a politician considering her countiy's
outlook. But above all she is a devoted wife and
mother, sympathizing in all things with her hus-
band, and sending her boy letters of advice and
warning, somewhat didactic, perhaps, according to
our modem notions, but full of affection and ten-
derness. She is ardently interested in everything
and puts it all into her delightful letters. Her
husband reads these letters with pride and teUs
her ^^ they may some day occasion your name to be
classed with Mrs. Macaulay and Madame Dacier."
The time, however, was approaching when it
would be necessary no longer for John Adams and
his wife to talk by letter. For, as it became evi-
dent to Mr. Adams that his stay in Europe must
be lengthened out indefinitely, he felt justified in
asking' his wife to join him abroad. He was home-
sick for his *' housekeeper ; " he wanted to enjoy
her " conversation ; " even at the tables of dukes
and ambassadors he was wishing that, instead, he
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 207
might be at home dining with Portia on rusticoat
potatoes. It was with such pleadings that he
courted her to come to him. Still, she hesitated
about accepting his "invitation." She felt very-
humble at the thought of appearing in a public
character, the wife of an ambassador. "A mere
American as I am," she wrote, "unacquainted
with the etiquette of courts, taught to say the
thing I mean, and to wear my heart on my counte-
nance, I am sure I should make an awkward fig-
ure ; and then it would mortify my pride, if I
should be thought to disgrace you." But finally
her longing to be with her " dearest friend " over-
came all her scruples and she and her family em-
barked for England in June of the year 1784.
Mr. Adams and his son met them at London,
and the Adamses were once more united and, to
quote Mrs. Adams's own words, "a very, very
happy family." The thought of seeing his wife
had made Mr. Adams " twenty years younger," he
said, but Mrs. Adams had to confess that she felt
extremely "matronly" between her "grown-up
son and daughter."
The surroundings among which Mrs. Adams
now found herself at the age of forty were very
different from those of the small country town in
which she had always lived. She was obliged to
become a "woman of fashion." She rode in a
coach, visited royalty, attended pageants and pa-
rades, went to ambassadors' dinners, and gave in
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208 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
return dinners to which many great personageB
came. It was not easy to adjust herself to so sud-
den and great a change. But Mrs. Adams's quick
perception, good judgment, and sincere manners
kept her from making an ^^ awkward figure," and
her enthusiastic interest in the world made her
new life enjoyable.
While she was living in France, Mrs. Adams's
pleasantest social relations were with Thomas Jef-
ferson, Dr. Franklin, and the family of the Marquis
de la Fayette, and she very much reg^retted leaving
these friends when her husband's office of repre-
sentative to England called her to that country.
Mrs. Adams's position at the court of England
was a novel and difficult one. She was the first
woman representative from America and she, as well
as her husband, was made to feel the indignation of
their former sovereigns against the rebels who had
beaten them. She has left an entertaining account
of her formal presentation to the king and queen
in a letter to one of her sisters at home. Her court
dress, upon this occasion, was ^^ elegant," she says,
but as '* plain " as possible, for she was determined
(by all the shades of her Puritan ancestors, no
doubt) to have no " foil or tinsel " about her. It
was of white lutestring, festooned with lilac ribbon
and mock point lace. Ruffle cuffs, treble lace lap-
pets, white plumes, pearl pins, earrings, and neck-
lace completed her " rigging," as she expressed it.
In this ^' elegant but plain " costume she made her
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 209
first appearance at court, accompanied by her hus-
band, her daughter Abby, and a certain Colonel
Smith, secretary to the American legation, the man
who afterwards became Miss Abby's husband. De-
scribing their entrance into the queen's drawing-
room and their reception there, Mrs. Adams writes :
^' We passed through several departments, lined as
usual with spectators upon these occasions. Upon
entering the antechamber, the Baron de Ljmden,
the Dutch minister, came and spoke with me. A
Count Sarsfield, a French nobleman with whom I
am acquainted, paid his compliments. As I passed
into the drawing-room. Lord Carmarthen and Sir
Clement Dormer were presented to me. The
Swedish and the Polish minister made their com-
pliments, and several other gentlemen ; but not a
single lady did I know until the Countess of Ef-
fingham came, who was very civil. There were
three young ladies, daughters of the Marquis of
Lothian, to be presented at the same time, and two
brides. We were placed in a circle round the
drawing-room, which was very full, I believe two
hundred persons present. Only think of the task I
The royal family have to go round to every person
and find small talk enough to speak to them all,
though they very prudently speak in a whisper, so
that only the person who stands next to you can
hear what is said. Persons are not placed accord-
ing to their rank in the drawing-room, but promis-
cuously; and when the king comes in he takes
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210 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
persons as they stand. When he came to me Lord
Onslow said ' Mrs. Adams,' upon which I drew off
my right hand glove, and his majesty saluted my
left cheek ; then asked me if I had taken a walk
to-day. I could have told his majesty that I had
heen all the morning preparing to wait upon him ;
but I replied : * No, sire.' ' Why, don't you love
walking? ' says he. I answered that I was rather
indolent in that respect. He then bowed and
passed on. It was more than two hours after this,
before it came to my turn to be presented to the
queen. The queen was evidently embarrassed
when I was presented to her. I had disagreeable
feelings too. She, however, said : ^ Mrs. Adams,
have you got into your house ? Pray how do you
like the situation?' while the princess royal
looked compassionate, and asked if I was not much
fatigued, and observed that it was a very full
drawing-room."
We can imagine with what eager interest such
an account was received and read by Mrs. Adams's
friends at home. It must have been a satisfaction
to these simple country folk to learn that their old
friend remained unaffected and unchanged amid
such scenes of rank and fashion and that, when
the time came, she was glad to leave it all and
return to them. "Whatever is the fate of our
country," she said to her sister, " we have deter-
mined to come home and share it with you."
The home-coming of the Adams family occurred
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 211
at the same time with the adoption of the present
American Constitution. Under the new code of
laws Mis. Adams found herself Madam Vice-Presi-
dent, and, eight years later, upon Washington's
retirement from public life, she rose to the position
of the first lady in the land, the wife of President
John Adams.
When the news of her husband's election to the
highest place among his countrymen came to Abi-
gail Adams she was at Quincy and from the old
home she writes to him, in a spirit of humility that
exalts her :
"Quincy, Feb. 8, 1797.
*^ ^ The Bnn is dresBed in brightest beams
To give thy honors to the day.'
" And may it prove an auspicious prelude to each
ensuing season. You have this day to declare
yourself head of a nation. 'And, now, O Lord,
my God, Thou hast made thy servant ruler over
the people. Give unto him an understanding
heart, that he may know how to go out and come
in before this great people ; that he may discern
between good and bad. For who is able to judge
thy so great people?' were the words of a royal
sovereign; and not less applicable to him who
is invested with the chief magistracy of a nation,
though he wear not a crown nor the robes of roy-
alty. My thoughts and meditations are with you,
though personally absent; and my petitions to
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212 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Heaven are that the things which make for peace
may not be hidden from your eyes. My feelings are
not those of pride or ostentation upon this occasion.
They are solemnized by a sense of the obligations,
the important trusts, and numerous' duties con-
nected with it. That you may be enabled to dis-
charge them with honor to yourself, with justice
and impartiality to your country, and with satis-
faction to this great people, shall be the daily
prayer of your
"A. A."
As mistress of the presidential mansion Mrs.
Adams was admired for her excellent judgment,
her conversational powers, and her ^'statesman-
like " mind, while her genial disposition and kind-
ness of heart did much to soften the party spite
and enmity which arose toward the close of her
husband's political career. And when the tide of
popular sentiment turned against John Adams and
he was left a maligned and defeated man, it was
his wife's cheerful, buoyant spirit which cheered
him. Amid all his disappointments, perplexities,
and bitterness of soul, he said he had found conso-
lation in her perfect understanding of him.
For eighteen years after their retirement from
public life John Adams and his wife lived to-
gether in the farmhouse at Quiucy, as that part of
Braintree which had always been their home came
to be called. And once more Mrs. Adams was to
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ABIGAIL ADAMS. 218
be seen in her dairy skimming milk, and the old
president in the field working among his hay-
makers. The simple, rural, domestic pleasures
which they could not enjoy together in their earlier
days were no longer denied them. From the
people they came and to the people they had
returned.
Mrs. Adams lived to see all her sons graduates
of Harvard College and students of law as their
father had been, and her eldest son she saw raised
to the honor of secretary of state. She lived to
welcome many frolicsome little grandchildren, on
Thanksgiving days and merry Christmases, to the
jolly farmhouse beyond the " President's Bridge."
She lived to celebrate her golden wedding with
that "dear untitled man " to whom she had given
her " heart," the farmer's son of whom, in the days
before the Revolution, her father's parishioners
had disapproved.
To the end she kept her brave and cheerful
nature. " I am a mortal enemy," she used to de-
clare, " to anything but a cheerful countenance and
a merry heart, which Solomon tells us does good
like medicine." And her husband, writing to his
son Thomas, says with pleasure of Tom's mother,
"A fine night's sleep has made her as gay as a
girl."
"Gay," genial, afitectionate Abigail Adams 1
She never grew old. One likes to think of her in
those golden-wedding days, young and strong in
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214 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
courage, patriotism, and kindness, living in the
realization of her youthful dream, ^' esteemed and
loved by her partner, sitting with him under their
own vines in peace, liberty, and safety."
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vni.
ELIZABETH SCHUYLER, OF ALBANY,
AFTEBWABDS WIFE OF ALEXANDEB HAMILTON.
Bom in Albany, New York, August 9, 1767.
Died »t Waehlngton, District of OolnmbU, 1864.
**A charming woman, who joined to all the graces, the
simplicity of an American wife." — Brtssot de WarvilU.
One pleasant October afternoon in the year
1777 a young girl was standing in one of the great
windows of the Schuyler manor house at Albany.
She was looking out across the sloping lawns,
the lilac hedge, and over the chestnut trees to
where, along the western skies, the craggy hills of
the Helderbergs stood out sharp and clear, and,
farther off, along the southerly horizon, the lofty
peaks of the CatskiUs rose against the blue.
The clatter of hoo& rang out on the driveway
below her and, looking down, the girl saw a young
officer ride out from the grove of forest trees that
shaded the lawn, and rein up his spirited horse
before the doorway of her father 's house.
The bearing and appearance of the young man
were dignified and distinguished. He wore the
216
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216 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
green ribbon that designated the uniform of Wash-
ington's " military family," or staff, and rode his
horse like a trooper; but his three-cornered hat
was drawn almost over his eyes, as though he were
deep in thought.
As he approached the house, however, he lifted
his head, pushed back his hat from his forehead,
and gave the handsome residence before him a
quick survey.
Then it was that his glance rested for a moment
on the bright picture of the girl, framed in the
western window. The afternoon sun was shedding
its warmth and light on her simple head-dress, the
gay colors of her brocaded gown, and the brilliant
beauty of her face. For a second his dark eyes
met the merry brown ones of Betsey Schuyler; but
the next instant the girl drew quickly away from
the window.
" Why, Betsey I " exclaimed her younger sister
Peggy from across the room as she caught Betsey's
quick action and noted her face ; ** I vow, you are
blushing. What at?"
" Indeed, I am not blushing," protested Betsey,
as she dropped the curtain.
Then the girls heard the blows of the heavy door-
knocker resounding through the house.
" I wonder," continued Betsey with feigned in-
difference, as she carefully examined the buckles on
her little high-heeled slippers, " was papa expecting
any one this afternoon, Peggy.**
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I Mr Ni\l 1\ - I - \ r I HI. v.Iai. J>aJ- \\ 'MU^J.i •\\^•^'^ IKiM
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 217
The younger girl reflected a moment, casting
meanwhile a suspicious glance at her sister.
" H'm," she said slowly, " yes, I believe he was
expecting a call from one of General Washington's
aids — Mr." —
^^ Hamilton I " broke in Betsey, darting at her
sister, no longer able to restrain her girlish enthu-
siasm over this young stranger at the door. ^^ Then
'twas he I saw from the window but now, for he
wears the general's uniform. And oh, Peggy 1"
she exclaimed, catching her sister by the hand and
dancing her across the room, "he is the most
refreshing sight I have seen this long while."
Meanwhile young Hamilton was closeted below
with General Philip Schuyler, the girl's father.
This visit to the Schuyler mansion at Albany wa8
an episode in the most important event of Hamil-
ton's career, that of his mission from General
Washington to General Gates and the Army of the
North to treat concerning reenforcements for the
southern army. On his way Colonel Hamilton
had stopped to ask the advice of Gen. Philip
Schuyler, Washington's trusted friend. The con-
sultation between them was a long one, and it was
several hours before the general brought the young
aid-de-camp into the drawing-room, where the rest
of the household were assembled.
In the words of one of Philip Schuyler's con-
temporaries, the general had " a palace of a house "
and lived " like a prince." The young officer felt
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218 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
this as he passed through the long, handsomely
famished rooms, crossed the great white wain-
scoted hall, sixty feet in length, and entered the
brilliantly lighted drawing-room with its deep win-
dow-seats and handsomely carved mantels.
But Alexander Hamilton was still more impressed
with the atmosphere of cordiality and sociability
that pervaded the fine old colonial house. Another
youthful aide-de-camp, Col. Tench Tilghman, has
left, in his chatty diary, enthusiastic testimony of
the Schuyler hospitality and good-fellowship.
^ There is something in the behavior of the gen-
eral, his lady and daughteis," he writes, ^^that
makes one acquainted with them instantly. I feel
easy and free from restraint at his seat as I feel at
Cliffden, where I am always at a second home."
Hamilton, too, had experienced this sensation of
pleasant familiarity in the general's reception of
him, and as he was presented to the ^^lady and
daughters " of the &unily he found it again in their
cordial welcome.
But soon he was conscious of nothing but the
charming presence of Mistress Betsey Schuyler.
** Colonel Hamilton needs no introduction," she
was saying, with an elaborate courtesy, and there
was a ring of frankness and freshness in her voice
that won Hamilton's admiration immediately. '^ His
name is familiar to all who honor bravery and
patriotism."
** Still less does Miss Schuyler need one," he
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 219
returned, with his most courtly bow; ^^ praises of
her are on the lips of all lovers of wit and beauty."
"Oh, Mr. Hamilton, I spoke sincerely," she
exclaimed, with a deprecatory motion of her fan.
She seated herself again within the broad window
where she had received her father's guest, smiling
up into the face of the young officer.
" You cannot have spoken more so than I. Be-
lieve me. Miss Schuyler^ fame has not been silent
on so fair a subject," he replied earnestly, taking
a seat beside her.
One of Betsey Schuyler's admirers has described
her eyes as " the most good-natured, dark, lovely
eyes I ever saw." Colonel Hamilton was of the
same opinion as he looked into their shining depths.
" Fame ? " she repeated, echoing his word with a
light laugh of derision. " I shall need to ask you
to be more particular in your charges, Colonel
Hamilton. What dreadful things do my friends in
the Jerseys say of me ? "
" Well, madam, if you wish to know," he replied,
with one of his electric smiles, " the ladies lay it
against you that you are too charming, and the
gentlemen declare that you are the soul of good-
ness and sweetness, but " — he stopped suddenly
with a questioning glance in her direction.
" Pray go on," commanded Betsey, turning a very
inquisitive face towards him. "You are arrived
at the most interesting point of your discourse —
the but:'
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220 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
**But," he went on, taking up her word and
taming upon Miss Betsey so searching a glance
that she was forced to drop her eyes, ^^they admit
that in an affair of the heart you can be very cruel.
Miss Schuyler."
Her dark lashes swept her cheek and a smile
dimpled the comers of her mouth. Hamilton bent
toward her to get a nearer view of her face so
expressive of kindness and merry frankness. His
teasing mood passed into seriousness.
''It is not to be credited that you are ever
cruel,*' he said ; " are you ? "
"Is it cruel to say 'no* to the wrong man?'*
queried Betsey pensively.
There was a brief pause after this demure re-
mark. Betsey's fan slipped to the floor. Colonel
Hamilton stooped to pick it up, and as he handed
it to her their eyes met.
Betsey looked into the strong, keen face and the
dark eyes full of force and energy, now lighted
with the enthusiasm of boyish admiration. She
was quick to read the signs of Hamilton's superi-
ority over other young men, and discerned, per-
haps, a prophecy of his greatness and success. He
saw, in the sweet face before him, not only charm
and beauty, but goodness and sincerity also, and
the evidence of a bright and active mind.
" I pray you, let us not talk of the wrong man.
Miss Betsey," he said, "I am anxious for a few
hints as to what the right man must be."
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 221
The words themselves were but the customary
gallantly of the time, but the ardent tone in which
they were uttered called the flush to Betsey's
cheek. It is uncertain what she might have said
in reply if "good Mrs. Schuyler," as Franklin
called tiie general's wife, had not joined them just
then with inquiries as to Colonel Hamilton's health
and the fatigues of his journey.
Hamilton responded gratefully to the solicitude of
Catherine Schuyler, the " mamma " of the Schuyler
girls and boys, of whom it is said that she had
"the soft manners of a gentlewoman and the
tender heart of a mother."
The young Schuyler boys, lively, mischievous
little chaps, to whom every soldier was a hero,
were also anxious to make the acquaintance of
General Washington's aide-de-camp. And so, as
Hamilton was exceedingly fond of children, he
soon had them beside him, regaling them with
tales of camp life, march, and battles, into which
their father, the general, entered with the spirit of an
old campaigner, while the girls, Betsey, Peggy, and
the small Cordelia, with their mother, sat by laugh-
ing at the jokes and commenting on the stories.
Presently dinner was announced, and then the
Schuyler dining-room resounded with merry voices
and laughter and the jingling of plates and glasses,
while the young aide^e-camp did honor to the good
dinner and General Schuyler's Madeira, which is
reported to have been excellent.
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222 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
After dinner Hamilton was permitted to resume
his tSte-OrtSte with Miss Betsey. It is surprising
how much two attractive young people can teU
each other in the short period of a few hours.
Betsey soon knew a great deal about Hamilton's
early history, his island home in the West Indies,
his faint memories of his French mother and his
Scottish father, his untaught childhood, liis en-
trance as a boy of twelve into the West Indian
counting-house, and his voyage to the United
States. She had already heard of him as the re-
markable young orator of King's College, New
York, the patriotic writer of pamphlets, and the
able artillery ofl&cer and aid of General Washing-
ton. But his story as told by himself in his eager
speech and quick motions possessed a charm no
history can give.
Betsey in return told tales of her own child-
hood and early girlhood on the northern frontier,
while the young officer listened with enthusiastic
interest, fixing his eloquent dark eyes on her face
as she talked.
Of course what she related to Colonel Hamilton
that evening forms but a smaU part of the story of
her life, which certainly is as full of danger and
adventure as a romance. The events which have
made history entered into it very intimately, the
lights and shadows of deep joys and sorrows colored
it, and great historic personages, lords and ladies,
generals, statesmen, and presidents, figured largely
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 228
in its pages, all paying their tribute to this charm-
ing daughter of colonial days.
The house where she was bom is still standing,
four miles above Albany. " The Flatts," as it was
called, the ancestral home of the Schuylers, is a
hospitable old mansion shaded by great trees and sur-
rounded by a pleasant green lawn that slopes down
to the river. The thick walls of the house and the
buUet-hole through the stout Dutch shutter bring
to mind the stormy days into which Elizabeth was
bom.
At the time of her birth her father, Philip Schuy-
ler, then a young captain under General Bradstreet,
the quartermaster of the English army, was en-
gaged in the war against the French and Indians.
His family bible contains this entry :
"Elizabeth, bom August 9, 1767. Lord, do
according to thy will with her."
When she was only two months old the frightful
massacre of the German Flats occurred, and the
refugees fled to Albany. In the big bam at " the
Flatts" they found shelter. The little Schuyler
babies, Elizabeth and Angelica, who was scarcely
a year older than her sister, had to be set aside
while their young mother, Catherine Schuyler, with
the other women of the household, helped in minis^
tering to the needs of the poor, destitute people.
At this time, too, the town of Albany was filled
with rapacious English troops and army traders.
A detachment of redcoats under Gen. Charles Lee
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224 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
lay in the ^^ Indian Field," a lot adjoining the
ground of the Schuyler mansion, and they did not
hesitate to lay hands on whatever suited their pur-
pose. Abercrombie, Lee, and kindly courteous
Lord Howe were all visitors at " the Flatts " during
this period.
Later, when the defeat of Ticonderoga came, the
Schuyler bam again opened its hospitable doors.
This time it was converted into a hospital, and
the wounded British and Provincial soldiers lay
beneath the rafters, fed by the negro slaves and
nursed by the mistresses of the Schuyler home-
stead.
But the cries of the homeless and the moans of
the wounded were not the only sounds heard in the
old historic bam. The baby voices of the little
Schuyler girls resounded there, amid the " lowing
of the cattle " and " the cooing of the doves in the
eaves."
Happier and more peaceful days, too, were com-
ing. When the storm of war had passed, the Pro-
vincials laid aside their muskets and returned to
their industries and professions. It was then that
the Schuyler house at Albany was built, hereafter
to be known as the family mansion. We have seen
how deeply Hamilton was impressed with its mag-
nificence on that memorable afternoon when he first
met Mistress Betsey. The Count de Castelleux has
left a description of it as it was then. ^^ A hand-
some house," he wrote," half-way up the bank oppo-
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 226
site to the ferry, seemed to attract attention, and to
invite strangers to stop at General Schuyler's, who
is the proprietor as well as the architect. The
house is imposingly placed on high ground, at that
time in full view of the river."
It still stands, an impressive old house built of
yellow brick ; it is an " institution " now, and little
orphan babies are living in the rooms where Betsey
Schuyler grew up with her sisters and brothers,
danced and flirted with the buff and blue coats,
and entertained the great people of colonial and
Revolutionary days.
Here, in the centre of city life, comforts, and
amusements, the Schuylers spent the winter
months, while their summers were passed at their
country home in old Saratoga.
"My hobby," General Schuyler wrote to John
Jay, "has always been a country home life ; " and
much time, energy, and money were lavished on
his " castle " beside the Hudson, at old Saratoga, —
now known as Schuylerville.
The long two-storied house, with its great cen-
tral hall and its rows of colonial pillars, was very
like Washington's Mount Vernon home. At the
foot of the slope on which it stood ran the tum-
bling, winding stream of the Fishkill, surrounding
little wooded islands and breaking into miniature
waterfalls. On all sides stretched the flourishing
vegetable and flower gardens, the orchards and the
vineyards, and the fields of flax and grain.
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226 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
The house overflowed with hospitality and gener-
osity. On cool evenings the open fires blazed and
sparkled^ and the windows shone with warmth and
good cheer. The large Dutch kitchen was always
redolent with the smell of delicious bread and
cakes and pies.
There were seasons of soap-making, candle-dip-
ping, cider-making, spinning, weaving, and dyeing,
and there were open-air festivities for the gather-
ing-in of vegetables and fruits. There were drives
to the beautiful banks of the Hudson and the
mineral springs about Saratoga, while gay river
parties, in sloops and covered barges, sent the
sounds of song and laughter floating across the
wide waters of the Hudson.
In the midst of this happy and prosperous life
we can see the lively, dark-eyed Schuyler girls
taking an active part. But none of these pleasant
pastimes were allowed to interfere with their edu-
cation.
As the daughter of so worthy and distinguished
a man a9 General Schuyler, Betsey received an
education superior to that of most colonial girls.
She, with her sisters Angelica and Margaret, or
" Peggy," as she was familiarly called, was sent to
New York to school. Their New York relative,
James Livingston, sends this interesting report
of their progress there: "The young ladies are in
perfect health and improving in their education in
a manner beyond belief, and are grown to such a
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 227
degree that all the tucks in their gowns had to be
let down some time ago." Betsey becomes very
real as soon as we hear of her outgrowing her
frocks just as modem little girls do.
There were some things, however, included in
Betsey's education of which the girls of the present
day are quite ignorant. The near neighborhood
of the Indians and the friendly relations of some
of them with the colonists occasioned a certain
intimacy between the children of both people.
There is no doubt that Betsey learned weaving and
plaiting and other such accomplishments from the
little Indian girls with whom she played.
The honor and respect in which she and the rest
of General Schuyler's family were held by the
Indians is shown in a picturesque incident of
Betsey's childhood that has come down to us.
This is the story as it has been told before:
" All the chiefe and greatest warriors of the Six
Nations," says the chronicler, " had met in solemn
council, row after row of fine specimens of man-
hood standing silently around an open space where
a bit of greensward gleamed in the sunshine.
Although they were dressed in all the barbaric
pomp of war-paint, there was peace on their faces
as they stood awaiting the approach of a small
group of whites — one or two officers in full uni-
form and a tall, commanding man in the prime of
life, leading by the hand a slim girl of about thirteen,
dressed in white with uncovered head and half-
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228 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
canons, half-frightened eyes. This man was Gen.
Philip Schnyler, whom the Indians honored as
they did no other white man ; and they had met to
offer him a tribute of devotion. At a sign from
their great chief, their ranks parted to admit Gren-
eral Schuyler, who advanced into the open space,
still leading his little daughter. There, with much
pomp and many ceremonies, the child was formally
adopted by the Six Nations, the chiefs ending the
sacred rites by laying their hands upon her head
and giving her an Indian name meaning *• One of
us.' "
The little girl dressed in white, with ^^ half-curi-
ous, half-frightened eyes," was Betsey Schuyler,
and we can easily imagine how impressed and awed
she must have been by this strange adventure
among the Indian warriors.
In striking contrast to such an intercourse with
the half-savage red men of the woods and wig-
wams was the gay " court life " in which Mistress
Betsey was included as soon as she had outgrown
her short gowns and ^Hucks," and had attained
the dignity of young womanhood.
The large number of relatives which the Schuy-
lers possessed, among the Van Cortlandts, Living-
stons, Van Rensselaers, and Schuylers of New York,
made visiting within the court circle in the proud
little city at the mouth of the Hudson a frequent
and enjoyable occurrence for the Albany family.
To one of Betsey Schuyler's social tastes. New
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 229
York life waa rendered very attractive by the
fascinating "redcoats" and the handsome Pro-
yincial dandies, by the amusements of the play,
the promenade along the Mall in front of Trinity,
and the receptions and balls at Fort Greorge on the
Battery, where the government house stood. Talk
of tyranny, taxes, and politics mingled with the
social chat and gossip of the day, and we may be
sure that so bright and patriotic a young woman
as Betsey was well informed on current topics, —
the growing disaffections and protests, and the
rumblings of war.
When news of the battle of Lexington came
Betsey was at Saratoga with the rest of the family.
War had begun and, in the days that followed, she
lived in the midst of army talk and army doings.
For generals, officers, and aides-de-camp were com-
ing and going continually at the Schuyler mansion.
Some of them have left their impressions of
Betsey Schuyler as she was then — a charming
girl of eighteen, full of spirit, good sense, and
amiability. A very bright picture of her appears
in the diary of Tench Tilghman, a young Mary-
lander, one of Washington's aides-de-camp, who
came to Albany to attend the Indian council which
was held there early in the summer.
" Having taken leave of my host," he writes, " I
called at the General Schuyler's to pay my com-
pliments to the general, his lady, and daughters.
I found none of them at home but Miss Betsey
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280 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Schnyler, the general's second danghter, to whom
I was introduced by Mr. Commissary Livingston,
who accompanied me. I was prepossessed in favor
of the young lady the moment I saw her. A
brunette, with the most good-natured, dark, lovely
eyes I ever saw, which threw a beam of good temper
and benevolence over her entire countenance. Mr.
Livingston informed me that I was not mistaken in
my conjecture, for she was the finest-tempered girl
in the world."
The acquaintance between Betsey and the young
Southerner so favorably begun did not stop here.
Gayeties were soon started. Among them was a
picnic to the picturesque " cataract " of Cohoes Falls,
above Albany, Mrs. Lynch and Mrs. Cuyler driving
there in a post-chaise, " Miss Betsey Schuyler and
Mr. Cuyler in a kind of phaeton, Miss Ljmch and
Mr. Tilghman in a third."
At the Falls Betsey's dexterity in climbing over
the rocks amazed young Tilghman, for she " dis-
dained all assistance, and made herself merry at
the expense of the other ladies." Presently the
picnickers refreshed themselves with the lunch
of " sherbet and biscuit " which the young aide-de-
camp provided. On their way back they stopped
at a farmhouse for dinner, arriving home in the
evening just in time for the Indian dance, " which
being entirely novel was the more entertainii^ to
the ladies."
The next day the Schuylers gave a dinner-party.
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 281
to which Mr. Tilghman, some Carolina friends of
his, and several generals were invited. The con-
versation at table was very lively. A proposition
was made that the young Southerner, as a promis-
ing young man, should be adopted by the Indians.
For this it was necessary that he should receive an
Indian name and take an Indian wife. Miss Betsey
Schuyler and Miss Lynch agreed to " stand brides-
maids," and young Tilghman entered into the fun
with spirit. That evening he was adopted by the
Indians, and christened Teokokolonde, which moans
" One having courage."
For a week the festivities lasted. Then General
Schuyler was obliged to set out for Ticonderoga, and
Mrs. Schuyler and the girls returned to Saratoga.
On the morning of their departure the young
Southerner " went out to breakfast with the general,
and to take my leave of the ladies. I found the
girls up and ready, for the March breakfast was on
the table, and down I sat among them like an old
acquaintance, though this is only the seventh day
since my iutroduction. It would be seven years
before I could be so intimate with half the world ;
but there is so much frankness and freshness in
this family that a man must be dead to every feel-
ing of familiarity who is not familiarized the first
hour of being among them.'*
These enthusiastic words call up a delightful
picture of the Schuylers' hospitality and sociability.
We can easily imagine the lively brown-eyed
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232 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Betsey in this scene of genial home life. Nor is
this her last appearance in the pages of Mr. Tilgh-
man's diary. He was to see her once more before
leaving Albany.
" Who should bless my eyes again this evening,"
he writes, "but good-natured, agreeable Betsey
Schuyler just returned from Saratoga. With her
was Miss Ranslaer, with whom she is staying."
Mr. Tilghman had heard of "Miss Ranslaer's"
numerous beaux, and could talk with her " on such
agreeable matters, lamenting my short stay out of
compliment to her, and such commonplace stuff.
But I told Miss Schuyler so with truth," he adds,
*^ for I am under infinite obligations to the kindness
of her and her family."
All Revolutionary days, however, were not so full
of fun and enjoyment for Betsey Schuyler as those
described in young Tilghman's diary. There was
a time of nursing and anxiety when her father
was brought home sick and exhausted with his
wearing service in the north. At one time the
Schuyler home and the master's life were threatened.
But the Indian who had been stationed near the
house to shoot General Schuyler faltered, so the
story goes, as he raised the pistol, while memories
of the general's past kindnesses came over him.
" I have eaten his bread," he said ; " I cannot
kill him."
During this period of danger and anxiety an
episode occurred in the Schuyler household that
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 283
lends a romantic glamor to those perilous days.
This was the elopement of Betsey's elder sister,
Angelica, with Mr. John Church. The young
bridegroom had previously left England on account
of a duel, and had assumed the name of Carter,
but these incidents in his early history only made
him the more attractive to Miss Angelica.
In those days brides preferred romantic settings
for their marriages. An elopement like this of
General Schuyler's eldest daughter was by no
means an unusual occurrence. Young girls fed
their minds on exciting lovenatories, and dreamed
of the moonlight night, the rope ladder, and the
coach and four.
*'In the Schuyler household," says Miss Hum-
phreys, " elopements assumed the virulence of an
epidemic." Of the five Schuyler girls four ran
away to get married. Betsey was the one sensible
daughter. Along with her lively disposition and
love of fun, she possessed a good stock of com-
mon sense, and her head could not be turned by
the foolish sentimentality of the time.
Hardly had the Schuyler family recovered from
the excitement of Angelica's elopement when,
early in April, they were called upon to entertain
three distinguished guests. These were Samuel
Chase, Charles Carroll, and Benjamin Franklin,
who had been appointed by Congress as commis-
sioners to visit the Army of the North. On their
way to Ticonderoga they stopped at General
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284 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
Schuyler's home. " He lives in fine style and has
two daughters, Betsey and Peggy, lively, agree-
able gals," writes one of the commissioners; and
that gallant gentleman Charles Carroll of Carroll-
ton records, '*The lively behavior of the young
ladies makes Saratoga a most pleasing sojourn."
But in spite of Betsey's ** lively behavior " with
the younger commissioners she found time to play
backgammon with the older one. Perhaps one
of the most pleasing pictures we have of Betsey
is the glimpse of her and Doctor Franklin, seated
in their high-backed easy chairs before the back-
gammon board, the light from the blazing fire
shining on her young and animated face and on
the quiet, genial countenance of the old phil-
osopher.
" He was very kind to me," Betsey said long
afterwards.
This visit of Doctor Franklin and the other com-
missioners at the Schuylers' Saratoga home took
place a few months before the battle of Saratoga.
Betsey loved her father and she must have felt
keenly the injustice that denied him the credit o{
a victory that was his by right.
It was not a Schuyler trait, however, to show
resentment, and the general's whole family tried to
forget a personal indignity in their interest in the
country's welfare. They continued to show their
goodness in fresh expressions of kindness and hos-
pitality.
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 286
General Burgoyne, the Baroness Riedesel, and
other prisoners of war, were sent to the Schuyler
mansion at Albany for safp keeping and entertain-
ment A short time before, General Burgoyne had
burned the Schuyler house and mills at Saratoga,
so he was the more affected by the courteous re-
ception which he received. Here is the English
general's own testimony:
"This gentleman (an aide-de-camp of General
Schuyler's)," he wrote, " conducted me to a very
elegant house, and, to my great surprise, introduced
me to Mrs. Schuyler and her family ; and in this
house I remained during my whole stay in Albany,
with a table of twenty covers for me and my friends,
and every demonstration of hospitality."
The general's gratitude for such considerate
treatment, we are told, moved him " even to tears."
But, as we might suppose, he and his nineteen
friends caused Mrs. Schuyler and the young ladies
"no small trouble." Surely when these twenty
prisoner-guests went away they must have left a
much-relieved family behind them.
The departure of General Burgoyne and his ret-
inue from the Schuyler mansion preceded, by a few
days, the appearance of another visitor — the young
oflScer whom Betsey first saw from her window that
pleasant October afternoon.
The friendship which Betsey formed with Alex-
ander Hamilton during his short stay in Albany
was not destined to end here. He carried away
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286 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS,
with him a sincere and lasting regard for the
bright-eyed, sweet-faced Betsey Schuyler, and she
kept a very pleasant memoiy of the brilliant, boy-
ish-looking young aide-de-camp.
After a period of almost two years they met
again. General Schuyler had been appointed to
Congress and had gone to live at Philadelphia with
his family. The headquarters of the army during
the campaign of 1779-80 were at Morristown —
some fifty miles or so from the Schuylers' Phila-
delphia home. At that time Betsey's aunt, Mrs.
Cochran, was living at Morristown, and of course
she wanted her dear niece Betsey to pay her a visit.
It was a cold November morning when Betsey
made her journey to Morristown. The river was
in the hands of the enemy, and so the trip had to be
made across country by a roundabout way. With
her furs, her rosy cheeks, and her glistening dark
eyes, she was a very refreshing sight as she stepped
out of the heavy wagon that had carried her with
fljring speed over the ice and the rough country
roads.
Her arrival in Morristown was commented upon
in the letters and diaries of the camp. Miss Kitty
Livingston considered her a great "addition" to
society there.
Headquarters were very gay at that time.
Washington's household was composed of a brill-
iant company. Two of Betsey's old friends, as
his aides-de-camp, occupied the heads of his table
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 287
and undertook the entertainment of his guests.
These were Tench Tilghman and Alexander Hamil-
ton. Washington and his wife sat opposite each
other in the centre of the board, and on both sides,
almost continually, were ranged many distinguished
visitors. Impetuous young Aaron Burr was of the
number, the elegant Baron Steuben, and the splen-
did Duke de Lauzun. In this illustrious group
of men Hamilton shone as ^^ the bright particular
star."
Betsey was soon making and renewing acquaint-
ances among them. She and Tench Tilghman had
much to say to each other about old times. To the
Baron Steuben she brought a letter from her father,
in which he commends his daughter to " one of the
most gallant men in camp." Betsey must have
found much to enjoy in the society of this gay and
witty foreigner. But the one of whom Betsey saw
the most during her visit to Morristown was Alex-
ander Hamilton.
As it happened, her stay at Morristown was hap-
pily prolonged. Her father was invited by the
commander-in-chief to come to headquarters as his
military adviser, so the Schuyler family were soon
established at Morristown. Their home became
one of the centres of social life. Hamilton spent
most of his evenings there.
His devotion to Betsey was soon remarked in
camp, and the gossips of the day exchanged the
significant nod and smile when he and Betsey were
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238 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
seen dancing or walking or driving together.
Every one was interested in this " afifair," from the
commander-in-chief to Tench Tilghman and Kitty
Livingston. Young Tilghman wrote to his brother,
^^ Hamilton is a gone man."
Meanwhile Hamilton and Betsey were enjoying
themselves, quite unmindful of the talk they were
occasioning. Hamilton was so much in earnest
that his love made him decidedly absent-minded.
One night, when returning to headquarters, after
an evening in Betsey's society, his thoughts were so
occupied that he could not recall the countersign.
For once in his life his eloquence failed him, and he
stood dumb and perplexed before the amazed sen-
tinel. Presently he caught sight of the lad at
whose father's house Washington and he were then
staying. He remembered that the boy had been
given the countersign, that he might play on the
village green after dark. So he called the lad to
him and asked him to whisper him the countersign.
This the boy did, and the young lover was finally
allowed to pass. But his friends and fellow-officers
got hold of the story and chaffed him about it at
dinner next day.
Hamilton was as impetuous in love as he was in
war, and his wooing was as eloquent as his oratory.
Betsey, however, although she had made up her
mind early in the courtship, kept her lover waiting
the proper length of time. Before the next sum-
mer their engagement was announced and was duly
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 289
recorded in all the journals and correspondence of
the camp.
General Schuyler was almost as much pleased as
the young people themselves, and wrote affection-
ately to his future son-in-law.
" You cannot, my dear sir," he assured him, " be
more happy at the connection you have made with
my family than I am. Until the child of a parent
has made a judicious choice his heart is in continual
anxiety ; but this anxiety was relieved the moment
I discovered upon whom she had placed her affec-
tions. I am pleased with every instance of delicacy
in those who are dear to me, and I think I read
your soul on that occasion you mention. I shall
therefore only entreat you to consider me as one
who wishes to promote your happiness; and I
shaU."
In the following summer occurred the Arnold
treason and the execution of Andr^. Betsey was
then at Saratoga, but her lover's letters to her asso-
ciate her intimately with both events. These let-
ters have become a part of history. But Betsey
received another sort of letter, devoted to other
matter than that of treason, war, and politics.
" I would not have you imagine. Miss," Hamilton
wrote her, "that I write you so often to gratify
your wishes or please your vanity ; but merely to
indulge myself and to comply with that restless
propensity of my mind which will not be happy
unless I am doing something in which you are con-
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240 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
cemed. This may seem a very idle disposition in
a philosopher and a soldier, but I can plead illus-
trious examples in my justification. AchiUes
liked to have sacrificed Greece and his glory to a
female captive ; and Antony lost the worid for a
woman. I am very sorry times have so changed as
to oblige me to go to antiquity for my apology, but
I confess, to the disgrace of the present, that I have
not been able to find as many who are as far gone
as myself in the laudable zeal of the fair sex. I
suspect, however, that if others knew the charm of
my sweetheart as I do, I could have a great number
of competitors. I wish I could give you an idea of
her. You have no conception of how sweet a girl
she is. It is only in my heart that her image is
truly drawn. She has a lovely form and still more
lovely mind. She is all goodness, the gentlest, the
dearest, the tenderest of her sex, — ah, Betsey, how
I love her I "
Few great men have written so sweet a love-
letter ; but perhaps few great men had so charming
a sweetheart to inspire them.
On December 14, 1780, Elizabeth Schuyler and
Alexander Hamilton were married in the ample and
handsome drawing-room of the Schuyler mansion at
Albany, where three years before, if reports be true,
they had met and loved.
Elizabeth Schuyler's story as a daughter of colo-
nial days ends with her marriage. The merry,
light-hearted Betsey has become Mrs. Alexander
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 241
Hamilton, one of the most prominent leadeis of
official society. She was eminently fitted for her
high position. In her father's home she had been
accustomed to entertaining the great people of the
day ; from her mother she had learned the ways of
a large and ever-ready hospitality ; while her own
brightness, grace, and ability ensured her success.
We may judge how great a lady Betsey had
become when we read that, at Washington's inaug-
uration ball, the President distingfuished Mrs. Ham-
ilton and one other woman by dancing with them.
She and her husband were included constantly in
Washington's dinner and theatre parties.
The Hamiltons were not rich. " I have seen,"
writes Talleyrand, " one of the marvels of the world.
I have seen the man who made the fortune of a
nation laboring all night to support his family."
Yet in spite of their slender means the Hamiltons
were frequent entertainers. Their official position
and their popularity as host and hostess surrounded
them with many acquaintances and friends, and
their home on Wall street became a favorite resort
for the rank and fashion of New York. There are
records of many elaborate dinners given by them,
notably one in honor of Thomas Jefferson, after his
return from France.
Hamilton, however, was not merely the most
brilliant statesman of his day and Betsey was not
only a charming society woman. There are glimpses
of a beautiful home life led apart from their official
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S42 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
duties and social obligations. Here is a letter
written by Hamilton, shortly after the birth of their
first son, to Mead, one of his army friends :
" You cannot imagine how domestic I am becom-
ing," he writes. " I sigh for nothing but the so-
ciety of my wife and baby. Betsey is so fond of
your family that she proposes to form a match
between her boy and your girl. He is truly a very
fine young gentleman, the most agreeable in his
conversation and manners of any one I ever saw,
nor less remarkable for his intelligence and sweet-
ness of temper. You are not to imagine by my
beginning with his mental qualifications that he is
defective in personal. It is agreed on all hands
that he is handsome : his features are good, his eye
is not only sprightly and expressive, but full of
benignity. His attitude in sitting is by connois-
seurs esteemed graceful, and he has a method of
waving his hand that announces the future orator.
He stands, however, rather awkwardly, and his legs
have not all that delicate slimness of his father's.
It is feared that he may never excel in dancing,
which is probably the only accomplishment in
which he will not excel. If he has any faults in
his manners, he laughs too much. He is now in his
seventh month."
This is certainly a picture of true domestic hap-
piness, and there are other later scenes of an equally
affectionate family life. There is that one of Hamil-
ton accompanying his daughter Angelica at the
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ELIZABETH SCHUYLER. 243
piano when she sang or played — his beautiful
young daughter, who lost her mind after her
father's tragic death. Then there is that one of
Mrs. Hamilton '^seated at the table cutting slices
of bread and spreading them with butter for the
younger boys, who, standing by her side, read in
turn a chapter in the Bible or a portion of Gold-
smith's 'Rome.' When the lessons were finished
the father and the elder children were called to
breakfast, after which the boys were packed off
to school." It is interesting to note that among
the elder boys included in the family at one
time was Lafayette's son, George Washington La-
fayette, who was confided to the care of Hamilton
during the frightful days of the French Revolu-
tion.
Hamilton's reason for resigning his seat in the
Cabinet has become historic. In it we see a proof
of his love for his wife and children.
"To indulge my domestic happiness more
freely," he writes, " was the principal motive for
relinquishing an office in which it is said I have
gained some glory."
In this life of " domestic happiness " for which
Hamilton resigned his career as a statesman, Eliza-
beth Hamilton was a bright and cheerful influence.
She entered warmly into her husband's plans, and
sympathized heartily in the interests of her chil-
dren. That sweetness of disposition and kindness
of heart which in her girlhood had so endeared her
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S44 COLOXIAL DAMES AXD DAUGUTERS.
to her friends made her iriaHmw as wife and
mother yeij beaatifoL
The peace and gladness of the Hamilton home
were craelly ended on that fatal July morning, in
1804, idien Hamilton lost his life. At his on-
timely death all America monmed, but the terrible
sorrow of his fsunily cannot he described.
His wife, the dear ^Betsey** of his boyhood,
survived her husband for fifty long, lonesome years.
When she died, at ninety-seven, a pleasant, sweet-
faced old lady, praised for her sunny nature and
her quiet humor, a pocket-book was found in her
possession. Within it lay a yellow, timewom
letter. It was written on the morning of the duel,
and was Hamilton's farewell to his ^^ beloved Mrif e.'*
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IX.
SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS,
TWO QUAKER FRIENDS OF PEOLADBLPHIA.
Sarah WIster: Born in Phlladelpbia abont 1782.
Died in Philadelphia, April 25, 1804.
*■*• Her life must hare been a joy to itself and to others." — S.
Weir Mitchell.
Deborah Norris : Bom in Philadelphia, October 19, 1761.
Died at Btenton, Penney iTania, February 2, 1839.
^* Her memory lives on as a tradition of charm and worth,
a lady of the old school, a pure, ideal Quakeress." — Sarah
Sutler WtMter.
Monday, the 8th of July, 1776, was "a wann,
sunshiny day" in Philadelphia. So John Nixon,
one of the Committee of Safety, recorded in his
diary.
Sally Wister and Debby Norris thought it was
something more, and they were very glad to find
a cool spot under the maples in widow Norris's
pleasant garden. They made a very pretty picture
as they sat and chatted in the shade of the tall
trees, streaks of sunlight flitting across their
245
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246 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
flowered petticoats and muslin aprons and the
white purity of their Quaker caps and kerchiefs.
Sally was doing most of the talking and most of
the laughing too, while Debby listened or made
bright comments, turning her delicate oval face
toward her friend with a sweet expression of coun-
tenance that was not quite a smile. That half smile
was one of Debby's greatest charms.
" What would thee do, Debby/' Sally was say-
ing, "if the redcoats should march upon Phila-
delphia? Would thee not be frightened just to
death?"
"No," answered Debby, with brave spirit, "not
with our gallant general, George Washington, near
by to defend us."
Sally looked a moment at her friend in admira-
tion. Then she shook her head sadly over her
own weakness.
" I fear I have not thy courage and thy confi-
dence, Deborah," she said. " There is little of the
hero in my composition."
Deborah smiled at this. Sally's self-depreciation
was pretty and amusing. " Why, what would thee
do, Sally," she inquired, "if the British should
come?"
"Do," exclaimed Sally, with vehemence, "I
should run away just as fast as I could. Dadda
was saying only this morning that so soon as an
English occupation threatened our city he would
pack us all off to Aunt Foulke's farm at Gwynedd,
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 247
So," with a little shrug, " of course I should have
to go. Thee knows, Debby," with a sly look at
her friend, " I was always a model of obedience."
** Always — when thee wished," responded
Debby, looking quite solemn except for a merry
light in her soft brown eyes. " So thee would like
to leave our city, Sally Wister, and turn country
girl ? " she continued, with banter in her tone.
"Thee knows that I pride myself on being a
Philadelphian," retorted Sally, pouting. " 'T is
only my chicken heart that makes me wish to run
away. Don't call me a country girl, Debby, or I
shall tease thee in return."
** Thee cannot."
" Oh, but I can ; " Sally hesitated a moment, and
then looked into Debby's eyes with a mischievous
glance. "Thee cannot guess what thought did
pop into my head just now when thee spoke so
proudly of our brave commander."
" I '11 warrant it was a saucy one ; but tell me —
I am prepared for thy worst impertinence."
Sally laughed. "I reflected," she said, "that
thee did ever have a partiality for Georges. Why,
before ever thee had heard of our great hero. Gen-
eral Washington, thee cherished a deep regard for
another George who is now across the sea."
The color deepened in Debby's cheeks, but she
looked steadily ahead, assuming ignorance of
Sally's meaning. " Does thee accuse me of enter-
taining Tory sentiments and loving the English
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248 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
king ? " she asked quietly. " I thought thee knew
me better, Sally Wister."
"Oh, Debby, thee is a sly one," exclaimed
Sally, pointing her finger at her friend in pretended
shame. " Thee knows well I was not thinking of
King George. Thee cannot make me believe that
thee has forgotten thy old playfellow and admirer,
George Logan. Did I not accidentally come
upon thy verses to ' An Absent Friend ' ? Let me
think a moment," with a furtive glance at Debby
that told her she was successful in her teasing,
" perhaps I can recall them to thee if thee has for-
gotten them."
Debby's cheeks were quite scarlet now and there
was an angry flash in her eyes as she put her hand
quickly over Sally's offending lips.
" Be quiet, thee hussy," she said in a tone of
surprising gentleness. She had gained early that
outward calm which Quakerism taught. "Thy
tongue has run away with thee, and has carried
thee too far."
Sally immediately divined that Debby was a little
cross with her and she looked tremulously at her
friend. Her lovely round blue eyes were always
on the verge of tears or laughter, and now it was
tears. So Debby could no longer be angry with
her and the sweet half smile came back to Debby's
face.
" I think it is about time to talk of Sally's ad-
mirers," she said.
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THKY PKKRFD ON KR THE W^I.L."
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 249
Sally dropped her eyes demurely. " How can
we ? " she asked. " There are none to be talked
of. Why, Sally has not charms enough to pierce
the softest heart."
Debby pulled one of Sally's dark red curls by
way of contradiction. " Thee does not really think
that," she protested, " for thee is not without thy
proper share of vanity, I know, and thee cannot
help seeing that all the world loves thee. Of
course it does. Why, Sally, a stoic could not re-
sist so gay and sweet a girl as thee."
Sally put one arm about her friend's neck.
" Debby," she said, " thee will spoil me. Thee has
ever been too partial to thy naughty Sally. But
hark," she added with a sudden start, ^^ does thee
not hear the sounds of fife and drum ? "
'' Yes," answered Debby, listening, " they come
from the State House square and now I do remem-
ber to have heard Mr. Hancock tell my mother,
some evenings ago, that the Declaration of Inde-
pendence was to be proclaimed publicly from the
State House, at noon to-day. We must hear what
we can of it."
'' Yes, let us hurry," exclaimed Sally. '* There
will be a crowd and perhaps some fun."
So the girls ran across the lawn to the furthest
comer of the garden and climbing upon a big
wheelbarrow that stood there, they peered over the
wall at Fifth and Chestnut streets. The crowd
which they saw in the square was neither very
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250 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
large nor very well dressed ; many of the " most
respectable citizens " were doubtful and fearful of
this daring Declaration, and would not be present
at its reading. The members of the Congress
whom they saw standing in the State House yard,
upon what John Adams afterwards described as
"the awful platform," looked anxious and "op-
pressed by the sense of consequences." The reader,
John Nixon, they could not see, for a slight struct-
ure in the square hid him from their view. But
clinging to the garden wall, only half understand-
ing all that it meant, the girls heard the mighty
words of the Declaration; and, as they listened
eagerly, a feeling of intense enthusiasm came over
them and impelled them to join in the " cheers and
repeated huzzas " that greeted the closing words of
the invisible speaker — " We mutually pledge to
each other our lives, our fortune, and our sacred
honor."
The memory of that hot noontide was one to
last a lifetime; and it did. When one of the
girls who listened from widow Norris's garden
wall had long been dead, the other, a beautiful,
dignified old lady, loved to recall how she had been
an ear-witness at that first reading of the Declara-
tion.
The reading of the Declaration was one of many
stirring events that took place in and about Phila-
delphia that memorable year of 1776-77. Debby
and Sally had much to interest and excite them.
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 251
They were living in a troubled country, of which
their city was the centre, and ^th doubts and
tremors, a few for Debby and many for the
"chicken-hearted" Sally, they watched the war
closing in upon them.
After the battle of Brandywine, when the
British occupation of Philadelphia became evident,
Sally's father, Daniel Wister, '* packed off" his
family to the Gwynedd farm in Montgomery
County. Thus it was that Sally, just as she had
predicted, ran away from the redcoats.
While Sally was living the life of a country
girl, separated from her city friends, she kept a
journal which all agree \& one of the most charming
on record. This journal she dedicated to " Deborah
Norris," hoping " the perusal of it," as she writes,
" might give pleasure in a solitary hour."
One fancies Deborah " perusing " it in many a
"solitary hour," first while she was still a girl,
smiling over its jokes and stories, its sweet and
frank confessions, and later, after many years, read-
ing it with full eyes, calling up a picture of the dear
lost friend, seeing again the rosy dimpled cheeks,
the pretty hair of reddish tint, and the big, wonder-
ful, child-like eyes. Sally lives again in the pages
of her lively diary and we who read it so long after
find it as impossible to think of the gay young
Quakeress as dead as did her friend Deborah, or
the hero of Mr. Mitchell's splendid story, the gallant
Hugh Wynne.
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252 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
When Sally first introduces herself to us through
the medium of her journal she is in a very uneasy
state of mind. She is still fearing a British invar
sion. The sound of passing troops scares her
^^ mightily," she writes, and the sight of a uniform
" tacks wings to her feet." She is sure every soldier
she sees wears a red jacket. But finding that the
roads around the Gwynedd farm are held by the
ragged rebels and not the dreaded redcoats, she
grows braver. Finally, after the battle of German-
town, hearing that Washington is marching with
his army down the Shippack and Morris roads to
take up headquarters at the home of James Morris,
she ventures to go, early in the morning before
breakfast, with her younger sister Betsey and her
kinsman, George Emlen, about a half mile from
home to see the troops pass. We can picture her
in the bright morning light, hanging on her kins-
man's arm, peering, flush-cheeked and eager-eyed,
at the soldiers as they pass by. Many a smart
young officer must have turned more than once to
glance at the sweet, merry face under the Quaker
bonnet.
This was the beginning of Sally's adventures.
In the afternoon of the same day came another,
more exciting than the first. Sally was sitting on
the porch of the Gwynedd farmhouse with her
Aunt Foulke and her cousin Pris, when into the
yard rode " two genteel gentlemen of the military
order." " Your servants, ladies," they said. They
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 263
then asked if they could have quarters for General
Smallwood. " Aunt Foulke " thought she was
able to " accommodate " them as well as " the most
of her neighbors," so she told them they could.
Thereupon one of the officers dismounted and wrote
" Smallwood's Quarters " over the door, " which
secured us," remarks Sally, " from straggling sol-
diers." Having taken possession, as it were, in this
brief fashion, the officer mounted his steed and he
and his companion rode away.
Imagine the excitement of Sally and the rest of
the young feminine faction of the farm over this
great event. A house full of soldiers meant fun
for the girls. With delightful candor Sally informs
us that th^y straightway put themselves "in order
for conquest," and "the hopes of adventures," she
says, "gave brightness to each before passive coun-
tenance."
We will let Sally herself tell of the arrival of
General Smallwood of the Maryland line. No
other pen can do it justice.
" In the evening," she writes, " his Generalship
came with six attendants which composed his
family. A laige guard of soldiers, a number of
horses and baggage-wagons, the yard and house in
confusion and glittering with militaiy equipments."
(Poor Aunt Foulke ! One wonders if she relished
this friendly invasion as much as the girls.)
" There was much running up and down of stairs,
so I had an opportunity of seeing and being seen."
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264 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
(Artful Sally 1) "One person in particular atr
tracted my notice. He appeared cross and reserved ;
but thee shall hear how agreeably disappointed I
was." (Thee shall, indeed.) " Dr. Gould ushered
the gentlemen into our parlor and introduced them.
Be assured that I did not stay long with so many
men, but secured a good retreat, heart^afe, so far.
They retired about ten in good order. How new
is our situation ! I feel in good spirits though sur-
rounded by an army, the house full of officers, the
yard alive with soldiers, — very peaceful sort of
people, tho'. They eat like other folks, talk like
them, and behave themselves with elegance, so I
will not be afraid of them, that I won't. Adieu, I
am going to my chamber to dream, I suppose, of
bayonets and swords, sashes, guns, and epaulets."
After that evening's introduction Sally's fear of
the military completely vanished. She was soon
on friendly terms with tJie general and his " family "
and she has left vivid picture? of them all. But
the one who interested her most, he whom she at
first thought " cross and reserved " and in whom
she was so " agreeably disappointed," was young
Major Stoddard, a boy officer, some three or four
years older than Sally herself. Hear what she has
to say of him. " Well, here comes the glory, the
major, so bashful, so famous, etc. He is about
nineteen, nephew to the general, and acts as major
of brigade to him ; he cannot be extolled for graces
of person, but for those of the mind he may
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 265
justly be celebrated; he is large in his person,
manly and engaging in countenance and address.
. . . I have heard strange things of the major.
With a fortune of thirty thousand pounds, inde-
pendent of anybody, the major is vastly bashful ;
so much so that he can hardly look at the ladies.
(Excuse me, good sir ; I really thought you were
not clever ; if 'tis bashfulness only, will drive that
away.) "
The progress of Sally's friendship with the
major is very interesting. Fifth day. Sixth day
and Seventh day passed, she reports, with the major
" still bashful." But on the evening of First day
she had a long talk with him. It was Sally's little
brother Johnny who helped to bring them together.
Sally was " diverting " Johnny at the table, when
the major ^^ drew his chair to it and began to play
with the child." Soon Johnny was forgotten and
Sally and the major were engaged in a most agree-
able conversation. . "We chatted a great part of
the evening," writes Sally. " He said he knew me
directly as he had seen me. Told me exactly
where we lived."
The entries in Sally's journal for the next few
days show that she and the major were not slow to
improve on their acquaintance. Second day she
records : " Dr. Diggs came, a mighty disagreeable
man. We were obliged to ask him to tea. He
must needs pop himself down between the major
and me, for which I did not thank him. After I
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266 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
had drank tea, I jumped from the table and seated
myself at the fire. The major followed my example,
drew his chair close to mine, and entertained me
very agreeably." On Thursday she writes: " The
major and I had a little chat to ourselves this eve.
No harm, I assure thee ; he and I are friends."
Here one cannot but wonder was Sally in earnest,
or was she trying to conceal something under the
word " friends " ? Somehow the platonic title does
not seem suited to " naughty Sally," for we fear
she was a little of a flirt.
Thus during a week or more Sally's journal is
filled with dissertations on the major and his
charms — his " amiable manners," his ** sense,"
his " lively and agreeable conversation," and reports
of his Ute-d-tMe chats with Sally. At last Mis-
tress Sally has to laugh at herself for talking so
much about him. " Well," she declares, " thee
will think I am writing his history."
When Sally is not talking of the major she is
talking of the other oflScers. And yet, as much as
she has to say about them, she implies that she has
left the best unsaid. " Oh, Debby," she writes, " I
have a thousand things to tell thee. I shall give
thee so dioll an account of my adventures that thee
will smile. 'No occasion of that, Sally,' methinks
I hear thee say, 'for thee tells me every trifle.'
But, child, thee is mistaken, for I have not told
thee half the civil things that are said of us sweet
creatures at General Small wood's Quarters."
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 257
It was hard upon the " sweet creatures at Gen-
eral Smallwood's Quarters," and the officers there
too, that the exigencies of war had to come to in-
terrupt their pleasant intercourse. They were just
in the midst of a most delightful acquaintance
when orders arrived for the army to march. The
play-day was over. No wonder that Sally was
"sorry," and that the major looked "duU."
But there was one more good time to occur be-
fore the adieus were said. This came on a First-day
afternoon. We have a picture of Sally in a white
muslin gown, " quite as nice as a First-day in town,"
big bonnet, and long gloves, walking demurely
down the garden walk accompanied by sister Betsey
and cousin Liddy. On the porch a group of
officers were standing, and a little apart, their eyes
fixed on the retreating figures of the girls, were the
Majors Stoddard and Leatherberry. To Major
Stoddard Sally has introduced us at length. Of
Major Leatherberry she had less to say ; but that
little was to the point. " A sensible fellow who
will not swing for want of a tongue," was her ver^
diet on him, and in that agreeable character Major
Leatherberry appears before us.
The girls walking slowly down the path turned
into the road at the garden edge, and then Sally,
as she herself confesses, "looked back;" she saw
the majors and her glance told her that they were
debating coming after. Cousin Liddy must have
peeped too, for she said, " We shall have their
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258 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
attendance." But Sally was coy and shook her
head as if she had doubts.
However, Liddy was right. The majors must
have found Sally's backward glance enough of an
invitation, for they were soon beside the girls, salut-
ing and inquiring politely, " Have we your per-
mission to attend you, ladies ? " The girls did not
say no. Indeed, we can imagine their smiling
acquiescence.
Then followed a long walk through the woods,
where the trees shone red and gold in the charm-
ing autumn weather and along the banks of the
lovely Wissahickon River, whose waters, swollen
by recent rains, were too deep for them to cross.
Sally tells us that they shortened the way with
" lively conversation " and that nothing happened
during their " little excursion " but what was
" entirely consistent with the strictest rules of
politeness and decorum." She probably knew it
would please her Debby to hear she had been so
proper.
That country ramble as reflected through the
pages of Sally's journal is a very real and vivid
part of the past. We who read forget to-day
and see only visions of that gay young company of
long ago. Now Major Stoddard is helping Mis-
tress Sally over the rough places in the road and
trying to console her as she stands pouting over
the tear in her muslin gown. Now Major Leather-
berry is glancing down at the locket which Sally
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 269
wore about her neck and with subtle flattery quot-
ing the lines —
^*- On her white breast a Bparkling cross she wore,
That Jews might kiss and infidels adore.*'
And Mistress Sally is accepting all their gallantry
with pretty matter-of-factness and a charming air
of condescension.
That was the last good time for several weeks
which the girls and rebel officers enjoyed together.
On the very next day came the parting, Sally
and Major Stoddard seem to have been the saddest
upon that occasion. ** Our hearts were very full,"
writes Sally. " I thought the major was affected."
His " Good-by, Miss Sally," was spoken " very
low." Sally, " feeling sober," as she expresses it,
stood at the door and watched the major ride away
until the road " hid him " from her sight. At the
end of that day she records, " We are very still.
No rattling of wagons, no glittering of muskets.
The beating of the distant drum is all we hear."
During the next few weeks there was much
skirmishing in the near neighborhood of the Gwyn-
edd farm. The British had left Philadelphia and
were moving against Washington's position at
Whitemarsh. Sally and her people lived in per-
petual dread of an engagement. But Sally sur-
prised herself by her own courage. " 'T is amazing
how we get reconciled to such things," she writes.
" Six months ago the bare idea of being within ten.
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260 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
2Lje^ twenty miles of a battle would almost have
distracted me. And now, though two such large
armies are within six miles of us, we can converse
calmly of it."
However, Sally could not always feel brave.
The memories of the " horrors of Germantown "
and the thought of another such battle sometimes
filled her with alarm and brought on ^^ despondent
fits." One evening she was sitting in the parlor
indulging in one of these melancholy moods, '^ when
some one burst open the door" and exclaimed,
" Sally I here 's Major Stoddard." But it was a very
different Major Stoddard from the one who had
left her a short time before. He was no longer
"lively, alert, and blooming." Sally found him
reclining in Aunt Foulke's parlor, " pale, thin, and
dejected, too weak to rise." " The poor fellow,"
Sally explains, " from great fatigue and want of
rest, together with being exposed to the night air,
had caught cold, which brought on a fever." Sally
would not stay long to talk with him, being, as she
said, *' not willing to fatigue him."
The major mended slowly. Yet in spite of his
illness his friends could not keep him quiet. At
the first sound of any firing he waa on his feet,
giving orders to saddle his horse, that he might be
off fighting beside his comrades. His position of
forced inactivity was a hard one for so brave a
soldier. He could not act, he could only think ;
and the thoughts of a rebel officer, during the dis-
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 261
coitraging winter of '77-'78, were not always happy.
Indeed, they were enough to make even a boy of
nineteen, like the major, serious. And the major
was serious often. SaUy tells us that he was
" sometimes silent for minutes," and that after one
of these ^^ silent fits" he would clasp his hands and
exclaim aloud: "Oh, my God I I wish this war
was at an end."
Sally pitied the major " mightily " and did her
best to cheer him. In fact, she took so great an
interest in his welfare that '* the saucy creatures,"
Betsey and Liddy, began to tease her about him.
Those foolish girls "are forever metamorphosing
mole-hills into mountains," says Sally. And just
because of a harmless little question she once put
to the major they declared she had shown a
"strong partiality for him."
Sally laughs at the charge. With her usual
coyness she continues in her assertion that she and
the major are only " friends " and she gayly nar-
rates the story of how she came to ask the tell-tale
question.
" In the afternoon we heard platoon-firing," she
writes. "Everybody was at the door, I in the
horrors. The armies, as we judged, were engaged.
Very composedly says the major to our servant,
* Will you be kind enough to saddle my horse ? I
shall go.' Accordingly the horse was taken from
the quiet, hospitable bam to plunge into the thick-
est ranks of war. Cruel change. Seaton (one of
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262 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
the many officers who was stopping at Aunt
Foulke's) insisted to the major that the armies
were still; ^nothing but skirmishing with the
flanking parties ; do not go.' We happened (we
girls, I mean) to be standing in the kitchen, the
major passing through in a hurry, and I, forsooth,
discovered a strong partiality by sajring, ^ Oh, major,
thee is not going ? ' He turned around, * Yes, I
am. Miss Sally,' bowed, and went into the road.
We all pitied him ; the firing rather decreased, and
after persuasions innumerable from my father and
Seaton, and the firing over, he reluctantly agreed
to stay. Ill as he was, he would have gone. It
showed his bravery, of which we always believed
him possessed of a large share."
Sally's story brings the scene very vividly before
us. We seem to see the broad, low-studded kitchen
with its generous fireplace and its small-paned
windows through which one may discern glimpses
of pleasant meadow-land and wooded hill-slopes
— a peaceful sight ; but the sound of distant can.
nonading heard in the room dispels all thoughts
of peace. There, near the other girls, stands Sally,
clad in short gown and apron and the pretty Quaker
cap and kerchief. A mist of startled pity gathers
in her wide blue eyes as she beholds the major, still
pale and weak, but dressed for battle, hurrying
through the room. With sweet entreaty in her
tone she asks the question and he, stopping his
quick step and turning toward her, meets her glance
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 268
with eyes that express gratitude for her interest and
sympathy. Surely the interest and sympathy of a
girl like Sally must have made it easier for a soldier
to he brave.
It should not be supposed, however, because
Sally was kind to the major that she was the same
to all men who wore a uniform. At times she
could be quite severe. She studied the faults as
well as the virtues of the " unfair " sex, and loved
to philosophize upon them. Vanity she considered
among the chief of their sins. " I really am of the
opinion," she writes, '' that there are few of the
young fellows of the modem age exempt from van-
ity, more especially those who are blessed with
exterior graces. If they have a fine pair of eyes,
they are forever rolling them about ; a fine set of
teeth — mind, they are great laughers ; a genteel
person — forever changing their attitudes to show
them to advantage. Oh, vanity, vanity, how bound-
less is thy sway I "
Sally was also very critical of men who talked of
eating. Two Virginia lieutenants aroused her
displeasure by discussing turkey hash and fried
hominy — "A pretty discourse to entertain ladies,"
she remarks with scorn. From her own confession
we must believe that she was rather hard upon
those Virginia lieutenants. She laughed at them,
she says, " ridiculed their manner of speaking," and
** took a great delight in teasing them. I believe I
did it sometimes ill-naturedly." Well, if that was
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264 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
the way Mistress Sally behaved the two lieuten-
ants cannot have been very sorry to take their
leave of the charming, witty, sharp-tongued little
Quakeress.
Many officers had come and gone, the major had
recovered his health, gone to camp, and returned
to the farm again, and it was nearing Christmas
time, when the best frolic of the year occurred.
It was the figure of the British grenadier that did
it — the British grenadier and the mischievous wits
of Major Stoddard and the girls.
This is the way it came about. One fnorning
Sally was sitting darning an apron in her aunt^s
parlor with the other girls when Major Stoddard
entered. Seating himself near Sally, he began
complimenting her on her sewing and chatting with
her on various subjects. "We were very witty
and sprightly," writes Sally.
Finally they fell to talking of what they would
do if the British should come to the farm, and the
major laughingly declared that he would escape the
enemy's rage by getting behind the representation
of a British grenadier that stood in the haU-way
upstairs. Then suddenly the idea came to him
that it would be a good joke to play a trick on
" Tilly," one of his fellow-officers, with this same
British grenadier. He immediately told Sally and
the other girls what he wanted, and they, always
ready for a lark, promised their assistance. " If
thee will take all the blame, major," they said, hold-
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 266
ing back a little. " That I will," replied the major,
gallantly. And thereupon they all began to plot.
They waited for the evening to carry out their
scheme against the unfortunate Tilly. After tea,
while all the officers but Major Stoddard were
closeted in one room, chatting merrily on public
affairs, the British grenadier, who, by the way, was
a tall, imposing individual of six feet, was stationed
in the lower hall by the door that led into the
road. A servant was put behind him to act as his
mouthpiece. Another figure and more servants
were prepared to serve as occasion required. And
finally all swords and pistols were secured so that,
in the general confusion that must follow, there
would be no arms with which to kill the innocent
and unoffending British grenadier. When all was
ready the girls retired to the first landing on the
stairs and Major Stoddard went to join the other
officers.
One of the officers, Seaton, being " indisposed,"
had been taken into the secret and it was his negro
boy who, candle in hand, opened the door of the
room where all the officers were gathered and said,
" There 's somebody at the door that wishes to see
you."
We will let Sally tell the rest of the story.
" They all rose," she writes, " and walked into the
entry, Tilly first in full expectation of news. The
first object that struck his view was a British
soldier. In a moment Ins ears were saluted, ' Are
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266 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
there any rebel ofl&cers here?' in a thundering
voice. Not waiting for a second word, he darted
like lightning out of the front door, through the
yard, bolted over the fence. Swamps, fences,
thorn-hedges, and ploughed fields no way impeded
his retreat. He was soon out of hearing. The
woods echoed with, * Which way did he go? Stop
him. Surround the house.' The amiable Liscomb
had his hand on the latch of the door, intending to
make his escape. Stoddard, considering his indis-
position, acquainted him with the deceit. We
females ran downstairs to join in the general
laugh. I walked into Jesse's [her cousin's] parlor.
There sat poor Stoddard almost convulsed with
laughter, rolling in an arm-chair. He said nothing ;
I believe he could not have spoke. * Major Stod-
dard,' said I, * go to call Tilly back. He will lose
himself, indeed he will,' every word interrupted
with a ^ ha ! ha I ' At last he rose and went to the
door, and what a loud voice could avail in bring-
ing him back he tried. Figure to thyself this
Tilly, of a snowy evening, no hat, shoes down at
the heel, hair unty'd, flying across meadows, creeks,
and mud holes. Flying from what? Why, a bit of
painted wood.
" After a while, being in more composure, and
our bursts of laughter less frequent, yet by no
means subsided, — in full assembly of girls and offi-
cers, — Tilly entered. The greater part of my
risibility turned to pity. Inexpressible confusion
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 267
had taken entire possession of his countenance, his
fine hair hanging dishevell'd down his shoulders,
all splashed with mud; yet his bright confusion
and race had not divested him of his beauty. He
smil'd as he tripped up the steps, but 'twas vexa-
tion plac'd it on his features. Joy at that moment
was banished from his heart. He briskly walked
five or six steps, then stopped and took a general
survey of us all. * Where have you been, Mr.
Tilly? ' ask'd one officer. (We girls were silent.)
* I really imagin'd,* said Major Stoddard, * that you
were gone for your pistols ; I followed you to pre-
vent danger,' — an excessive laugh at each ques-
tion, which it was impossible to restrain. * Pray
where were your pistols, Tilly? ' "
Then it was, we learn, that the long-suffering
Tilly broke his silence with the following emphatic
ejaculation : " You may all go to the devil ! "
Sally, who doubtless thought it necessary to
apologize for that awful swear-word, tells us that
never before had she heard Mr. Tilly utter an " in-
decent expression." Probably the poor man had
never been so grievously provoked. We can hardly
blame him for his one profanity. Indeed, we can
only congratulate him on his good nature, which,
we are glad to hear, '•^ gained a complete ascendence
over his anger " and permitted him to join ** heartily
in the laugh."
This escapade with the British grenadier hap-
pened on the night before Major Stoddard's final
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268 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
departure. The next morning Sally and the major
said good-by "for months, perhaps for years," still
only " friends," we are to suppose. After the part-
ing was over Sally recorded in her journal, — rather
sentimentally, it seems, for one who " thanked her
good fortune she was not made of susceptibilities,"
— " He has gone, I saw him pass the bridge. The
woods which you enter immediately after crossing
it hinder'd us from following him further. I seem
to fancy he will return in the evening."
Soon after the major went the other officers were
obliged to leave also. The army was moving into
winter quarters at Valley Forge. ** We shall not
see many of the military now," Sally writes discon-
solately ; " we shall be very intimate with solitude.
I fear stupidity will be a frequent guest."
By way of a pleasant interruption, however, to
the " stupidity " that followed the departure of *' the
military," SaUy spent a week visiting her friend
Polly Fishbum, at Whitemarsh, a few miles distant.
She went over bad roads on horseback and re-
turned over worse roads in a jolting sleigh. The
days of easy travelling had not yet arrived.
While Sally was at Whitemarsh she and Polly
read Fielding's " Joseph Andrews " and the
" Lady's Magazine " together, they went driving,
and one evening they entertained two dragoons of
the Virginia and Maryland cavalry. On a Sunday
afternoon they " ascended the barren hills of White-
marsh," Sally tells us, "from the tops of which we
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SARAH WISTEH AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 269
hftd an extensive prospect of the countiy round.
The traces of the army which encamped on these
hills are very visible, rugged huts, imitations of
chimneys, and many other ruinous objects which
plainly showed they had been there."
But it was not until the winter had passed and
the long June days had come that Sally met with
any more " capital adventures." Of course Sally's
"capital adventures" always implied an oflScer;
and the officer who now came to the fore, almost to
the effacing of Major Stoddard's memory, was a Viiv
ginian captain, Alexander Spottswood Dandridge.
Sally cannot say enough in praise of this " ex-
traordinary man." " His person is more elegantly
formed," she writes, "than any I ever saw; tall
and commanding. His forehead is very white,
though the lower part of his face is much sun-
burned; his features are extremely pleasing; an
even white set of teeth, dark hair and eyes. I
can't better describe him than by saying he is the
handsomest man I ever beheld. ... It calls for
the genius of a Hogarth to characterize him. He is
possessed of a good understanding, a very liberal
education, gay and volatile to excess. He is an
Indian, a gentleman, grave and sad in the same
hour; but he assumes at pleasure a behavior the
most courtly, the most elegant of anything I ever
saw. He is very entertaining company and very
vain of his personal beauties, yet nevertheless his
character is exceptional."
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270 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
The fact that Captain Dandridge was an engaged
man seems not to have affected in the least Sally's
regard for him. Nor can we wonder. Sally her-
self tells of the many ^^ freedoms " of which he was
possessed and doubtless these ^^ freedoms " led him
to behave quite as if he were unpromised. Indeed,
he must have been a dangerous character and if
Sally had not been as skilful a player as himself
at the exciting game of hearts, he might have gone
away a winner. But as it was, she proved herself
a match for him.
Captain Dandridge arrived at the farm one after-
noon in the early part of June, desiring quarters
for " a few horsemen." His request was granted,
and for a few days the fields about the house were
once more " alive with soldiers " and the lawns and
porches of the Gwynedd farm sounded with the
merry-making of girls and officers.
On the very first evening of their acquaintance
the captain invited Sally to walk in the garden
with him. Sally, of course, did not refuse and
they were soon seated in a little rustic summer
house where the moon "gave a sadly pleasing
light." " We could not have been more sociable,"
writes Sally, "had we been acquainted seven
years."
The captain could not believe Sally was a
Quakeress. He probably thought her too gay a
creature for that sombre sect.
" Are you a Quaker, Miss Sally ? " he inquired.
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 271
"Yes."
"Now are you a Quaker?"
" Yes, I am."
" Then you are a Tory."
We can imagine the challenge in his dark eyes,
and Sally's tone of indignant protest as she re-
torted :
" Indeed I am not ! "
Sally was shocked at the captain's propensity to
swearing ; she thought it threw a shade over his
accomplishments.
"Why does thee do so?" she asked reproach-
fully.
" It is a favorite vice of mine, Miss Sally," was
the bold and laughing response.
Among the many things of which they talked
that evening, they spoke of dress. The captain
declared he was careless of his appearance. He
very often wore his hat hind side before, he
said, and by way of illustration he pulled his cap
about until the back part was in front. This
added to his general look of " sauciness."
" I have no patience," he declared, " with offi-
cers who, every morning before setting out, wait
to be powdered."
"I am very fond of powder," Sally remarked
demurely, " and think it very becoming."
" Are you ? " inquired the captain, looking
interested.
The next morning when he made his appearance
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272 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
before Miss Sally, behold, he was powdered "very
white."
** Oh, dear," exclaimed SaUy, as if in surprise,
" I see thee is powdered."
" Yes, ma'am," was the smiling reply, ** I have
dressed myself off for you."
This was a compliment to which Sally did not
object. But when, later on in the day, the captain
became too forward in his attentions, Sally did not
hesitate to answer him sharply. He had sent word
to her that he was in the parlor and begged that
she would come and see him. When she came he
rose to meet her and catching both her hands,
exclaimed :
" Oh, Miss Sally, I have a sweetheart for you."
" Pooh ! Ridiculous ! " retorted Sally, drawing
back. " Loose my hand, sir."
"Well, but don't be cross," said he, dropping
her hands and looking a little abashed, then adding,
as if to soften her heart by the prospect of separa-
tion, " I am going to headquarters ; have you any
commands there ? "
Sally shook her head. "None at all," she an-
swered, quite unconcernedly. But after a moment's
reflection she seemed to recollect something, " Oh,
yes, I have," she exclaimed. "Pray, who is thy
commanding oflScer? "
" Colonel Bland, ma'am."
" Please give my compliments to him," she
said sweetly, "and tell him I should be glad
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 278
if he would send thee back with a little more
maimers."
"Sally," broke out the captain, reproachfully,
"you have a spiteful little heart," and he turned
away as if to leave her. But thinking better of it,
he came back and putting on his sauciest face, he
asked coaxingly :
" Sally, if Tacy Vandereen won't have me, will
70U?"
" No, really, none of her discarded lovers."
" But provided I prefer you to her, will you con-
sent?"
"No, I won't."
"Very well, ma'am," and with that "he ele-
gantly walk'd out of the room."
The captain's leave-taking, Sally informs us,
was " truly affectionate." It occurred about four
o'clock in the afternoon. Sally had not forgotten
the morning's scene and was looking "grave."
The captain, noticing this, remarked to her sister,
" Miss Betsey, you have a very ill-natured sister.
Observe how cross she looks." Then turning to
Sally, " I hope we may part friends, Miss Sally,"
he said and he offered his hand.
Sally gave him hers. He took it and kissed it,
" in a very gallant manner." At the parlor door
he bowed low and with a " God almighty bless
you, ladies," he was gone.
He left Sally " heart^afe " and congratulating
herself that, as she had escaped thus far, she must
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274 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
be " quite a heroine and need not be fearful of any
of the lords of creation in the future."
It was only a few days after Certain Dandridge's
departure that news arrived that the British had
evacuated Philadelphia. At first Sally would not
let herself believe the joyous report. She had heard
it so often, she said, that she was quite ^^ faithless,"
and expressed her approbation of Pope's twelfth
beatitude, ^^ Blessed are they that expect nothing,
for they shall not be disappointed." But in spite
of her doubts the report proved true. The British
had really decamped and Philadelphia was once
more open to its rightful citizens. Sally and the
other girls at the farm could not restrain their
enthusiasm.
"The redcoats have gone, the redcoats have
gone," they all exclaimed together, " and may they
never, never, never return ! "
With this happy scene Sally's diary closes and
our little Quakeress \vith her " whims and follies "
vanishes from our sight. She was soon back in her
city home and we may well believe she did not
wait long after her return to see her old friend
Deborah and tell her all the droll, exciting things
which she had not recorded in her diary.
And Deborah had some things to say to Sally.
She had not been without adventures in her friend's
absence. While the two fair Margarets, Peggy
Chew and Peggy Shippen, had been smiling on the
British officers, Deborah had been entertaining the
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 275
leaders of the Revolution in her mother's pleasant
drawing-rooms.
Deborah's mother was an interesting woman.
Many friends and acquaintances, among them some
of the most distinguished of the patriot cause,
gathered round the Quaker widow's fireside to chat
with her upon the questions of the day. Deborah
was early taught to help in receiving her mother's
guests and the young girl's charm as a hostess is
spoken of in numerous records of the time.
One little anecdote remains as an illustration of
her ease and thoughtfulness. This is the story as
it has been told before :
"One day the Chevalier de Tieman (a young
Frenchman in our service, distinguished for wit,
talent, and acquirement) happened to call on Mrs.
Norris when the room was full of old friends and
persons of their own religious persuasion, between
whom and the accomplished foreigner there seemed
little in common. Deborah looked anxiously
round and presently singled out Humphrey Mar-
shall, a distinguished naturalist, but a man of the
plainest address, and presented them to each other,
adroitly turning the conversation upon botany,
which she knew to be a favorite science of De
Tieman's, and then left them to look after other
guests. After a long talk De Tieman came to her
with the inquiry, *Miss Norris, have you many
such men as this Mr. Marshall among you ? ' "
Deborah's introduction had proved a triumph of
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276 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
social etiquette. With her ready tact she had
" singled out " the one man among all her company
who could make De Tiernan enjoy his call. It was
for such acts as this, of kind and courteous spirit,
that Deborah Norris was esteemed one of the most
attractive women of her day.
Apart from her duties as hostess, Deborah had
been devoting much of her time to reading and
studying. For, now that she was out of school,
seeing something of learned people, she began to
realize the need of education more than she ever
had before. She regretted that she had not paid
better attention to good Mr. Benezet's instructions,
and she thought with something like remorse of
the many lesson periods which she had spent in
play.
Ijb may seem strange that Debby Norris had been
a hard girl to keep in order; but nevertheless,
such was the case. For although she was a quieter,
more gentle girl than Sally Wister, she was just as
full of fun. It was not until Mr. Benezet appealed
to her sense of honor and appointed her monitress
that she had become good.
Now that her school days were over and she
felt conscious of her own deficiencies in book learn-
ing, Debby undertook to educate herself. She
read and studied with great energy and persever-
ance and very soon she had learned more than she
ever did at school. We have to admire this brave,
ambitious girl working out her own enlightenment
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 277
at a time when useful books and able masters were
difficult to find, and when a woman's education
seldom went beyond the sampler and the spelling-
book.
However, there came a day when Debby's schol-
Cirly habits met with a serious interruption. This
serious interruption was no other than young Dr.
Logan. That gentleman had been completing his
course of medical study at Edinbui^h and Paris and
In the autumn of the year 1780 he returned to
America. His home-coming must have been a sad
one. His parents and his brother had died in his
absence, the farm at Stenton had been pillaged by
British troops, and he found himself without a
family, heir to nothing but ^'wasted estates and
utterly depreciated paper money."
Fortunately for Dr. Logan, however, he had
many friends who sought to comfort him in his
trouble .and among them none were kinder than
Deborah and Deborah's mother and Deborah's
brothers. He must have spent much of his time
with the Norrises and it ia no wonder that he grew
to love the sweet-faced, gentle-mannered daughter
of the house, with her thoughtful mind, her quiet
humor, and her earnest, fearless spirit.
Deborah and he had long been friends. The
mischievous Sally Wister was probably right when
she called them old playfellows. They both be-
longed to the good old Quaker stock of Philadel-
phia, their families had always been intimate ;
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278 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
indeed, their fiist American ancestors had been
neighbors and comrades.
Theirs was a short courtship and a shorter en-
gagement. They were neither of them of the kind
to love lightly and there was no doubt or hesitancy
in their minds. In the last year of the war, when
Deborah was not quite twenty, they were married.
Thanks to Deborah's own pen, we are able to
see the young husband as she herself saw him ; but
there is a touch of pathos in the portrait, which we
discover when we learn that it was done in after
years, while Deborah was a widow.
" His person was formed with exact symmetry,"
she writes, " about the middle size, erect and grace-
ful in his demeanor; his countenance would not
easily be forgotten by any person who had once
seen him ; it had an expression of thought, benig-
nity, and of open, unsuspecting honesty that was
very remarkable. His mind was wholly unpolluted
by avarice. His heart was tender, and he was
often led to sympathize with others in their dis-
tress and difficulties. Yet he had a quickness of
temper, and could show, on occasions, the utmost
spirit and resolution, for his personal courage
was great. He was a most true republican, con-
demning luxury and despising false glory. I may
be asked for the reverse of this picture. To me he
had no reverse, but was exactly the kind, good, up-
right man which I have represented him."
Deborah had left her rich mother's home to be-
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 279
come the wife of this excellent young man but very-
needy heir. Strict economy and good manage-
ment were necessary. Deborah always bore this in
mind and she proved so clever a housewife that
she and her husband were able to live in comfort if
not in luxury.
A year after their marriage they moved to the
farm at Stenton. That beautiful old estate was a
very paradise of rural beauties. It is pictured as
a place of swelling meadow-land shaded by maples,
oaks, beeches, and dark rows of hemlocks and
crossed by a stream of "crooked water" of the
Indian name Wingohocking. The house itself was
like a fabled mansion, witii its underground pas-
sage, its concealed staircase, and its secret door.
But the mention of coqy chimney-places, comer
cupboards, and the great library of book-loving
masters, which extended along the whole half front
of the house, makes the big farmhouse seem very
real and comfortable.
In this ideal home Mrs. Logan was able to in-
dulge her love of country, flowers, and animals,
of study, poetry, and society. We hear of her
rejoicing in her fields of clover and timothy, gather-
ing flowers from her garden to decorate her rooms,
and feeding the squirrels who lived in the trees
about the house. She had one very tame squirrel
who was a great favorite with her husband and
used to eat from the doctor's hand and search his
pockets for provender. Of the flowers Mrs. Logan
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280 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
wrote, *' No one can tell how much innocent enjoy-
ment I have derived f ropi flowers ; " and speaking of
animals, she said, '* To have the animal world about
you happy and inoffensive is no mean part of par-
adise in my opinion."
We also hear of Mrs. Logan in the great library
at Stenton, poring over books of poetry and vol-
umes of history. Of the poets, Milton appealed to
her most and he was in her thoughts when she was
stirred by beauties of nature, or deep religious sen-
timents. By way of a pleasant diversion, she herself
occasionally wrote verses, — if we may believe Sally
Wister, she began at an early age, — and allowed
them to appear in the pages of the "National
Gazette," smooth, flowing verses that are valued now
only as expressions of the author's poetic tempera-
ment. " The associations of poetry," she once said,
"embellish life." Her interest in history, espe-
cially the history of her own country, led to some
valuable additions to our colonial records. In the
garrets at Stenton she found old, tattered, almost
unintelligible letters written by William Penn,
James Logan, her husband's ancestor, and other
important personages of their day and she spent
many years deciphering, copying, and preparing for
publication these papers relating to the first days
of the Pennsylvania province.
And again we hear of Mis. Logan entertaining
many distinguished visitors, Americans and for-
eigneiB, who, as they passed through Philadelphia,
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS. 281
used to enjoy stopping at beautiful, hospitable
Stenton. Among the guests who gathered on the
lawns and porches of the fine old farmhouse were
Kosciusko, for whom she felt, as she affirmed,
^^ mingled emotions of admiration, respect, and
pity ; " the French minister, Genet, whom she de-
scribes as ^^ much of a gentleman in appearance and
manner ; " and Dr. Franklin, to whom she loved to
listen and of whose conversation she remarked ^^ a
natural, good-humored (not sarcastic) wit played
cheerfully along and beg^led you into maxims of
prudence and wisdom." Thomas Jefferson, who
was an intimate friend of her husband's, was often
at Stenton and in his letters to the doctor he
always sends " affectionate messages to my dear Mrs.
' Logan." But the visitor of whom Deborah Logan
felt the proudest was General Washington and she
has left a delightful picture of the great childless
man seated with her boys upon his knee, " caressing "
them, and speaking of them to his sweet Quaker
hostess " with commendations that made their way
immediately to a mother's heart."
This litfle extract shows Mrs. Logan's pride and
devotion as a mother. And it was the care of her
three small boys, together with her domestic re-
sponsibilities, that occupied the greater part of her
time.
Her domestic responsibilities were not slight.
Indeed, she was another one of those remarkable
colonial dames, who, without a suggestion of
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282 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
fluny, accomplished so many different things in
one short day that later hurrying, worrying gener-
ations can only wonder and grow envious. From
her own pen we have a glimpse of the industrious,
helpful life she led and of her pleasant intercourse
with other farmers' wives in the neighborhood.
" I have not forgotten," she writes, " the agree-
able interchange of visits, the beneficial emulation,
and the harmless pride with which we exhibited
specimens of our industry and good management
to each other. The spinning-wheel was going in
every house, and it was a high object of our ambi'
tion to see our husbands and- families clothed in
our own manufactures (a good practice, which my
honored husband never relinquished), and to pro-
duce at our social dinner-parties the finest ale of our
own brewing, the best home-made wines, cheese,
and other articles which we thought ought to be
made among ouiselves rather than imported from
abroad."
It is a picture of an old-time home and farm life
that has gone from our sight and is now known to
us only as a beautiful tradition. As one reads of
Deborah's part in it one falls to thinking of the
merry friend she once had and wondering if Sally
Wister was ever present at those charming social
and domestic gatherings. And if she was, did she
not get her share of the " beneficial emulation " ?
In former times Major Stoddard had praised her
sewing as he sat beside her and watched her mend
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SARAH WISTER AND DEBORAH NORRIS, 288
her apron; Captain Dandridge had admired her
sampler and wished that she could teach the Yir.
ginia girls some of her needle wisdom. Were
Deborah's " farmeresses " as appreciative of Sally's
stitches as Sally's beaux had been ?
We cannot say. Little is known of Sally's
later days. History only tells us that she " grew
to womanhood," that she became " quite serious,"
and that she " died unmarried." We are left to
wonder about the rest. Why did Sally grow seri-
ous ? And why did she never many ? All sorts
of romantic reasons suggest themselves, for Sally
was the very girl to have an " interesting story."
But we can get no further than surmises and it
is better, perhaps, not to puzzle ourselves with
what came after, but to think of her always as
the light-hearted, mischievous Sally Wister, who
frolicked and laughed and chatted and flirted on
the Gwynedd farm with the rebel officers. And
so we will let her depart from us just as she
came, a smiling, pouting, sweet, coquettish little
Quakeress.
But of Deborah we can know more. We can
think of her rounding out her life a lovable, serene
old lady, cheerful in spite of her sorrow and widow-
hood, enjoying, as she herseU declared, in the com-
pany of friends "a blameless cup of tea — that is,
without scandal," but liking best to sit alone in
her library reading the books that savored of the
past, or writing in her diary and on her memoir of
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284 COLONIAL DAMES AND DAUGHTERS.
her husband, or living in "the thought of other
years and the remembrance of dear and loved
friends — and one tender and cherished afiEection
which now mingles with all my thoughts and visits
me in everything I meet."
For those last days, bright and yet sad, there is
a beautiful expression in the pages of Mrs. Logan's
diary. "It is now autumn," she writes, "fading
into 'the sear and yellow leaf;' the sun is seen
through a haze ; the air is so bland and temperate
that it might be mistaken for spring ; but the days
are shortening apace. The wasps are flying against
the windows in pursuit of some sheltered situation
for winter ; a few birds with dissonant notes instead
of song, among whom I discover the blue jay and
the robin; the afternoon sun seems impatient to
reach his goal in the west ; and the nights are long
and chilly and dark. It all answers to myself."
Like the seasons, her life had been moving on
with careful and well-ordered plan, and when her
winter came it found her ready.
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